UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


PSYCHOLOGY 

OF  THE 

OTHER-ONE 


AN    INTRODUCTORY   TEXT-BOOK 

OF 

PSYCHOLOGY 


BY 

MAX  F.  MEYER 

Professor  of  Psychology  in  the 
University  of  Missouri 


SECOND  EDITION,  REVISED 

(Solumbta,  fttuottri 

THE  MISSOURI  BOOK  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

1922 


Copyright,  1921,  1922, 

The  Missouri  Book  Co. 

Published    February,    1921 

Second  Edition,  August,  1922 


!   .    •••   •  . 


.1 


^ 


PREFACE 

'(J  The  present  book  is  the  result  of  the  necessity,  existing  in  some 

colleges  and  universities,  of  giving  elementary  instruction  in  mod- 
ern psychology  to  college  students  who  are  only  members  of  the 
freshman  class,  to  students  who  have  never  studied  psychology 
before,   to   students   who   may   never   study   it   later,  to   students 
who  have  little  knowledge  of  physics  and  chemistry  and  perhaps 
1^       still  less  of  biology,  to  students  who  take  an  elementary  course 
^^      in  psychology  in  order  to  take  afterwards  a  course  in  educational 
psychology,  and  to  students  who  want  elementary  psychology  for 
O      a  better  understanding  of  the  problems  of  the  social  sciences.    For 
these  classes  of  college  students  this  book  is  written  as  a  text 
\       to   be    elaborated   by    the  instructor  as  he  wishes,   by    the    aid  of 

lectures,  additional  reading  assignments,  or  laboratory  work. 
\  MAX    F.    MEYER 

(     -.  The  University  of  Missouri 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

This  is  essentially  a  reprint  of  the  first  edition.  The  theories 
offered  to  the  student  in  order  to  give  him  an  understanding  of 
the  fundamentals  of  human  life  have  in  no  way  been  altered.  But 
several  unclear  statements  have  been  rewritten.  And  in  a  few 
places  references  have  been  added  to  the  author's  "Manual  of 
Psychology  Demonstrations".  The  booklet  just  mentioned  ought 
to  be  used  by  the  student  as  an  aid  in  the  study  of  this  text-book 
if  laboratory  facilities  can  be  provided.  The  changes  which  have 
been  made  in  the  text  occur  on  the  following  pages:  3,  5,  6,  9, 
46-49.  93,  94.  98.  116.  117,  126,  146-150,  198,  210-213.  220.  267,  339, 
363,  367,  429.  436-439. 

M.  F.  M. 

July  1922 


L85JU^) 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

1.  The  Other-One  becomes  an  object  of  interest  to  us  ... .  3 

2.  The  Other-One  manifests  machine-like  reactions   ....  28 

3.  The  Other-One's  reactions  are  either  concerted  or  local  50 

4.  Concerted  action  presents  a  problem  to  the  architect 

of  the  nervous  system 67 

6-    The   Other-One   appears   now   attentive,   now  absent- 
minded,  now  inattentive ^1 

6.  The  Other-One  varies  his  mode  of  reaction  gradually 

or  suddenly:  He  learns  and  wills   118 

7.  How  the  Other-One's  developed  nervous  functions  show 

up   anatomically    151 

8.  The  Other-One's  most  interesting  reflexes  and  instinc- 
tive   actions     176 

9.  Space  perception  on  the  skin:  A  species  of  condensa- 
tion of  the  nervous  functioning 216 

10.    Nature  enables  the  Other-One  to  perceive  space  at  a 

distance    229 

11-  Nature  divides  the  spectrum  for  the  Other-One's  space 

perception  at  a  distance    262 

12.  Nature  makes  a  second  division  of  the  spectrum  ....  279 

18.  The  Other-One  is  equipped  with  a  sense  organ  particu- 
larly suited  to  signals 293 

14.  The   Other-One's  talking   machinery    313 

15.  Rhythm:    Motions  grouped  and  thus  repeated    334 

16.  How  the  Other-One  talks  and  writes  to  himself   ....  354 

17.  If  the  Other-One  is  born  blind,  or  deaf, — what  then?  370 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

18.  The  Other-One  walks  in  his  sleep.  Disturbances  of  per- 
sonality.    Abnormalities    881 

19.  The   psychologry   of   the    Other-One   and   the   sciences 

other  than  psychologry   399 

20.  The  mysteries  of  the  soul 409 

Questions  and  Problems 423 

Index 436 


PSYCHOLOGY 

OF  THE 
OTHER-ONE 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Other-One  becomes  an  Object  of  Interest  to  Us. 

Robinson  Crusoe  has  just  acquired  his  man  Friday. 
He  is  naturally  anxious  to  know  what  use  he  can  make  of 
his  new  acquisition.  So  he  goes  to  the  Public  Library  (this 
is  a  sort  of  Munchhausen  tale)  and  selects  the  present  book 
as  the  one  most  likely  to  give  him  the  desired  information 
about  "The  Other-One." 

In  times  past  one  used  to  turn  to  psychology  books  when 
he  wanted  to  learn  something  about  his  Self — his  Soul. 
There  are  even  recently  printed  psycholog}'  books  which 
bear  the  title  "The  Science  of  Selves."  This  very  title  is  an 
anachronism.  The  idea  of  a  Self  characterizes  in  every 
branch  of  science  what  one  might  call  its  "prehistoric" 
period.  Man  tried  in  vain  to  explain  the  heavenly  bodies, 
the  weather,  the  land,  the  water,  the  animals  and  the  plants 
by  regarding  them  as  Selves:  Jupiter,  Apollo,  Neptune,  and 
so  forth.  Modern  science  owes  its  triumphs  to  the  fact  that 
it  has  learned  to  restrict  itself  to  descriiDing  merely  that 
which  one  can  measure.  The  psychology  of  the  Other-One 
follows  the  same  road.  Why  should  Robinson  Crusoe, 
wanting  information,  use  the  antiquated,  the  sterile 
method? 

Measuring  means  always  comparing  and  counting — com- 
paring a  thing  by  means  of  our  sense  organs  with  another 
thing  which  we  regard  as  our  standard  unit,  and  counting 
the  number  of  units.  Without  the  application  of  our  sense 
organs  there  is  no  measuring.  But  the  sense  organs  are  not 
applicable  to  a  soul,  to  consciousness. 

(3) 


4  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

There  is  a  special  fact  which  has  greatly  retarded  the 
advancement  of  the  psychology  of  the  Other-One, — the  fact 
that  the  psychology  of  the  Self  appears  so  much  easier, 
so  much  more  promising. 

Robinson  Crusoe,  when  asked,  tells  us  eagerly  that  he 
knows  perfectly  that  he  has  a  Self,  a  Soul.  He  adds  that 
he  knows  this  Soul,  this  mind,  this  Consciousness  (we 
capitalize  in  order  to  show  our  proper  respect)  much  better 
and  also  with  even  greater  certainty  ("Cogito,  ergo  sum," 
said  Descartes  two  centuries  ago)  than  any  of  the  things  of 
the  world.  The  latter  he  does  not  know  so  directly,  but 
merely  indirectly,  thru  mediation  of  his  sense  organs.  But 
for  exactly  this  reason  it  seems  useless  to  try  to  teach  him 
anything  about  what  he  knows  so  well,  his  Self.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  admits  that  he  knows  his  man  Friday  only 
by  applying  his  sense  organs  to  Friday ;  that  zvithout  apply- 
ing his  sense  organs  he  ivould  not  knoiv  that  his  man  Friday 
existed. 

Therefore  Crusoe's  desire  to  know  as  much  more  as 
possible  about  his  man  Friday  cannot  be  satisfied  by  the 
psychology  of  Selves.  He  needs  the  psychology  of  the 
Other-One.  He  needs  the  psychology  which  applies  sense 
organs  to  the  object  of  study,  compares  what  the  sense 
organs  perceive,  counts  and — leaves  the  question  whether 
Friday  has  a  Self,  a  Soul,  a  Mind,  a  Consciousness  to  the 
single  being  whom  it  might  concern,  to  Friday. 

It  is  customary  that  in  such  a  critical  case  the  Devil  is 
also  present.  (He  always  tries,  as  is  well  known,  to  em- 
barrass people  if  he  has  a  chance.)  He  is  present  on  the 
Island  clothed  as  a  missionary.  He  approaches  Crusoe  with 
this  impertinent  question :  "Are  you  going  to  deny,  by 
selecting  this  book  on  the  psychology  of  the  Other-One, 
that  your  man  Friday  has  a  soul,  precious  and  immortal?" 


NO  DEITTAL,  BUT  "NO  STTTDT,  OF  SELVES  5 

Crusoe  replies :  "If  I  were  a  missionary  and  interested  chiefly 
in  the  saving  of  a  soul,  the  question,  whether  he  has  one  or 
not,  would  be  of  the  greatest  importance  to  me.  But  I  merely 
desire  to  know  what  use  I  can  make  of  him  benefiting  me 
and  also  benefiting  him  so  far  as  I  can  know  thru  my  sense 
organs  what  may  be  good  for  both  of  us.  This  I  may  be 
able  to  learn  from  the  psychology  of  the  Other-One.  Your 
question  is  irrelevant. 

The  Devil  changes  his  clothes  and  reappears  as  a  philos- 
opher. "Crusoe,"  he  says,  "don't  you  admit  that  one  can  draw 
conclusions  relative  to  things  he  has  never  seen?" — "Him- 
self," shouts  Crusoe,  as  the  Devil  has  barely  finished  his 
sentence.  "You  left  out  the  word  himself  at  the  end  of 
your  question.  What  others  have  seen,  may  take  the  place 
of  what  I  have  not  seen  myself,  because  it  is  inconvenient 
to  look  at  many  things  myself.  But  this  does  not  change 
the  fact  that  my  interest  in  Friday  is  restricted  to  what  my 
or  other  sense  organs  reveal.  Without  any  sense  organs 
existing  in  this  world,  nobody  would  conclude  that  this  man 
Friday  existed  and  add  his  existence  to  the  stock  of  scientific 
knowledge." — "It  is  true,  then,  what  has  been  rumored," 
continues  the  Devil,  "that  you  take  no  interest  in  your  man's 
spiritual  welfare,  that  you  are  irreligious,  and  that  you 
have  driven  the  missionary  from  this  Island?" — "What  a 
defamation !"  replies  Crusoe  indignantly.  "What  is  true  is 
merely  that  I  refuse  to  mix  up  my  scientific  interest  with 
my  endeavors  in  religion,  poetry  and  art." 

Before  entering  into  a  detailed  study  of  the  Other-One, 
Crusoe  thinks  i-  advisable  to  trace  in  bold  outlines  the 
various  roads  over  which  he  has  to  travel  in  reading  his 
book.  Let  us,  he  says,  compare  the  Other-One  with  animals, 
plants,  manufactured  engines.  Watching  him  only  a  few 
weeks  or  even  only  days,  we  convince  ourselves  that  his 


b  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE 

chief  distinction  consists  in  being,  not  manufactured  of 
virtually  changeless  materials,  as  an  engine  is,  but  a  product 
of  growth,  and  that  he  continues  to  grow  in  many  respects. 

With  plants  the  Other-One  has  growth  in  common.  But 
the  differences  are  immense.  First  let  us  note  his  much 
greater  motility.  We  can  use  the  term  activity  instead  of 
motility  and  then  speak  of  his  greater  activity.  Concern- 
ing his  activity,  however,  there  is  a  distinction  which  is  not 
merely  one  of  more  or  less.  The  activity  of  a  plant  is,  so 
to  speak,  stereotyped.  A  certain  plant  closes  its  petals 
whenever  it  is  placed  in  the  shade.  The  Other-One's 
action — like  the  actions  of  virtually  all  animals — may  for 
some  time  appear  to  us  to  be  stereotyped,  too.  But  sud- 
denly we  observe  that  an  unexpected  and  novel  action 
occurs.  For  example,  Crusoe  gives  Friday  a  piece  of  meat 
and  finds  that  he  puts  this  in  his  mouth  and  swallows  it, 
gives  him  a  piece  of  bread  and  finds  that  he  puts  it  in  his 
mouth  and  swallows  it.  He  gives  him  a  piece  of  chocolate 
and  finds  that  he  puts  this  in  his  mouths  and  swallows  it, 
too.  He  gives  him  a  piece  of  chewing  tobacco  and  finds  that 
Friday  puts  it  in  his  mouth  and  spits  it  out.  But  Crusoe 
remembers  that,  when  he  gave  his  uncle  a  piece  of  chewing 
tobacco,  this  Other-One  kept  it  in  his  mouth  for  a  long 
time.  Generally  speaking,  the  Other-One  seems  to  be 
capricious,  willful. 

Comparing  the  Other-One  with  animals,  Crusoe  dis- 
covers that  Friday  often,  especially  before  performing  some 
important  action,  talks  to  himself ;  and  that  sometimes  he 
also  makes  curious  signs  in  the  sand,  and  that  this  talking 
and  writing  seems  to  have  a  great  influence  on  what  the 
particular  kind  of  action  is  which  follows.  For  example, 
he  finds  him  doing  this  before  he  chooses  a  particular  kind 
of  material  and  a  particular  spot  on  the  Island  for  the  con- 


ENGINES,  PLANTS,  ANIMALS.  7 

struction  of  a  shelter.  The  Other-One's  actions,  far  from 
being  directly  in  response  to  the  surrounding  things,  are 
often — indeed  usually — mediated  by  a  self-created,  that  is, 
invented,  set  of  symbols.  Some  call  these  symbols 
"thought;"  some  call  them  more  objectively  "language." 
Comparing  the  Other-One  with  animals,  we  can  say  then 
that  he  is  thoughtful. 

Recapitulating:  The  Other-One  is  more  a  product  of 
growth  than  this  can  be  said  of  an  engine  or  its  parts,  and 
has  growth  in  common  with  plants.  The  Other-One  differs 
from  plants  thru  his  willfulness,  his  variability  of  action, 
which  he  has  in  common  with  animals.  The  Other-One 
differs  from  animals  by  his  thoughtfulness,  the  mediation 
of  many  or  most  of  his  actions  by  symbols,  which  makes 
him  the  lord  of  the  Earth. 

For  the  reasons  which  follow  one  may  speak  of  a  hier- 
archy of  these  three  functions:  thoughtfulness,  the  highest; 
willfulness,  lower ;  growth,  the  lowest.  And  one  is  then 
justified  in  calling  the  Other-One  the  highest  creature  in 
the  universe,  an  animal  a  creature  less  high,  a  plant  a  lower 
creature,  an  engine  still  lower. 

Thoughtfulness  is  not  possible  without  willfulness,  for 
the  invention  of  arbitrary  symbols  naturally  is  a  function 
of  willfulness,  is  a  kind  of  variation  of  a  being's  reaction 
to  its  surroundings.  A  stereotyped  reaction  could  not  be 
called  an  invention.  And  willfulness  does  not  seem  possible 
to  any  considerable  extent  without  growth,  for  the  vari- 
ability of  action  is — altho  not  absolutely,  since  an  engine. 
too,  may  surprise  us ;  at  least  in  a  growing  thing,  in  a  prod- 
uct of  growth — dependent  on  growth.  Nobody  who  has 
the  slighest  experience  with  human  and  animal  willfulness 
denies  that  it  is  the  result  of  a  kind  of  growth,  both  in  the 
race  and  in  the  individual.     Robinson  Crusoe,  in  order  to 


8  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHEE-ONE. 

know  all  he  can  about  his  man  Friday,  will  ask  us  two 
questions.  I.  What  part  of  his  body  is  it  on  whose  growth 
first  his  willfulness,  later  his  thoughtfulness,  depends? 
II.  What  are  the  peculiarities  of  the  growth  of  that  part 
of  his  body? 

A  popular  answer  to  the  first  question  would  be — the 
brain.  A  better  answer  would  be — the  neural,  or  nervous, 
tissue.  The  brain  is  simply  a  conspicuous  lump  of  nervous 
tissue,  but  not  all  of  it.  In  its  totality  we  customarily  call 
the  nervous  tissue  "the  nervous  system."  The  answer  to 
the  second  question  cannot  be  given  briefly.  We  shall  have 
to  proceed  for  it  thru  many  chapters  of  this  book. 

On  reading  the  last  paragraph  it  occurs  to  Robinson  Cru- 
soe to  ask  himself  if  he  did  not  make  a  mistake  in  selecting 
this  book.  Are  there  not  many  other  kinds  of  books  which 
give  information,  and  perhaps  better  information,  on  the 
nature,  the  life,  of  the  Other-One?  Physiology,  anatomy, 
sociology,  economics  and  other  sciences  which  we  meet  in 
any  university  catalog  are  also  concerned  with  the  Other- 
One's  life.  Does  this  book  on  psychology,  when  it  applies 
itself  to  the  study  of  the  Other-One's  life,  encroach  upon 
these  other  sciences? — No!  There  is  undoubtedly  some, 
but  no  more,  overlapping  between  psychology  and  these 
other  sciences  than  there  is  between  many  other  two  sciences 
picked  out  of  the  catalog. 

What  sufficiently  divides  the  problems  of  the  psychologist 
from  those  of  the  physiologist  or  anatomist  is  the  greater 
social  or  individual  significance  of  their  problems.  A 
stomach  ache  or  a  deformed  bone  are  undoubtedly  problems 
of  the  Other-One's  life;  but  they  concern  chiefly  him,  who 
has  them.  If  you  pass  this  man  or  woman  on  the  street,  it 
makes  little  difference  to  you  whether  he  suffers  from  the 
ache  or  not,  whether  she  limps  or  not.     These  scientific 


DEFINITION   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  9 

problems  of  the  Other-One's  life,  as  problems  of  mainly 
individual  concern,  are  problems  of  the  physiologist,  who 
studies  digestion,  of  the  anatomist,  who  studies  the  structure 
of  the  bones.  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  whose  "life"  at 
this  moment  consists  in  striking  with  his  fist  another  man's 
face,  is  a  problem  which  concerns  you  immensely,  even  if 
you  are  a  mere  bystander,  but  still  more  if  you  are  the  one 
whose  face  is  afflicted.  The  peculiar  muscular  contractions 
in  the  fighter's  arm  and  body  in  general,  being  of  social 
rather  than  of  individual  significance — the  lone  Robinson 
Crusoe  on  his  island  in  the  past  could  not  fight — are  a 
problem  of  the  psychologist. 

Having  thus  drawn  a  line  between  the  problems  of  the 
physiologist  and  those  of  the  psychologist  which  is  quite 
sharp  enough  for  all  practical  purposes  of  departmental 
organization  in  our  scientific  institutions  of  teaching  and 
research,  we  find  it  no  more  dif^cult  to  draw  a  line  between 
psychology  and  those  other  sciences  of  the  Other-One's  life 
whose  problems  are  also  characterized  by  their  social  sig- 
nificance. Psychology  is  not  concerned  with  special  social 
institutions-^the  other,  the  special  social  sciences,  are  exact- 
ly thus  concerned.  Marriage,  for  example,  is  a  social  in- 
stitution quite  differently  specialized  in  different  parts  of 
the  world.  The  sociologist  studies  the  different  forms  of 
this  relation  of  the  sexes  as  it  appears  among  Americans, 
Turks,  Chinamen,  Hottentots  and  so  forth.  The  psycholo- 
gist is  interested  in  marriage  only  to  the  extent  to  which  its 
features  are  common  to  the  Americans,  the  Hottentots  and 
all  the  other  human  beings  on  earth.  The  psychologist  is 
interested  only  in  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  Other-One's 
life,  not  in  the  special  forms  which  these  laws  take  when 
applied  to  particular  historical,  geographical  or  ethnological 
conditions.    Like  marriage,  punishment  of  crime  is  a  social 


10  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 

institution  and  as  such  an  ''mportant  object  of  interest  to  the 
sociologist.  The  psychologist  studies  this  problem  of  pun- 
ishment of  human  beings  by  other  human  beings  only  in  its 
fundamental  aspects,  in  those  aspects  which  are  the  same 
in  every  human  being  no  matter  in  what  country  and  in 
what  historical  period  that  being  lives.  The  psychologist 
will  hardly  offer  advice  to  the  xA^merican  nation  today  as  to 
how  it  should  reform  its  penal  institutions.  That  is  the 
sociologist's  business.  Another  immensely  important  group 
of  social  institutions  are  the  schools.  The  special  problems, 
however,  of  the  age  at  which  a  child  should  be  sent  to  school, 
what  subject  should  be  taught  first,  what  later,  are  problems 
which  the  psychologist  gladly  and  without  any  feeling  of 
jealousy  leaves  to  educational  science.  Let  the  educator  de- 
cide how  children  should  be  guided  to  grow  into  citizenship, 
the  psychologist  finds  problems  enough,  of  a  more  funda- 
mental nature,  concerning  the  general  possibility  of  chang- 
ing the  raw  material,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Other-One  as  pro- 
duced by  hereditv  into  a  creature  properly  adapted  to  any 
environment  for  which  Nature  neglected  to  make — could 
not  make — satisfactory  provision  by  heredity.  What  the 
psychologist  studies  is  the  general  possibility  of  adaptation 
to  any  form  of  environment,  no  matter  what  it  might  be, 
leaving  out  of  consideration  all  those  historically  conditioned 
needs  which  are  the  very  crux  of  the  problems  of  the 
educational  scientist.  Political  science,  to  give  one  more  ex- 
ample, is  interested  in  government.  This  is  another  social 
institution  of  specialized  kind.  The  psychologist  gladly 
leaves  the  study  of  government  to  political  science. 

Robinson  Crusoe  thus  convinces  himself  that  psychology 
is  the  study  of  human  life  in  a  material  sense,  that  is,  the 
study  of  the  life  of  the  Other-One, — but  of  his  life  in  so  far 
as  it  is  of  social  significance  rather  than  as  it  is  of   sig- 


LOCOMOTION.  11 

nificance  for  himself,  and  only  in  so  far  as  life,  in  its 
social  aspects,  is  the  life  common  to  all  his  brothers  on  earth. 
Thus  is  excluded  from  the  province  of  this  study  the  Other- 
One's  life  as  it  shapes  itself  under  special  social  institutions. 

If  we  call  psychology  a  Natural  Science,  it  is  the  study 
merely  of  the  nature  of  "the  Other-One  in  relation  to  us." 
And  if  we  call  psychology-  a  Social  Science,  it  is  the  funda- 
mental social  science.  The  social  sciences  in  the  common  use 
of  this  term  must  then  be  regarded  more  properly  as  the 
"special"  or  "applied"  social  sciences. 

Looking  now  at  the  Other-One,  at  animals,  and  at  plants 
(all  three  the  product  of  growth)  from  the  psychologist's 
point  of  view  as  we  have  just  come  to  understand  it,  we  can 
not  help  being  struck  by  the  fact  that  plants  are  distinctly 
unsocial,  animalr  distinctly  social  beings.  We  hardly  think 
of  "The  Lonesome  Pine"  of  the  Kentucky  mountain  trail 
as  being  an  abnormally  living  specimen  of  its  kind,  but  we 
cannot  think  of  the  lonesome  Robinson  Crusoe  on  his  island 
as  living  a  normal  life.  Animals  mix  because  they  move. 
Locomotion  is  their  most  characteristic  form  of  behavior. 
Exceptions  to  this  rule,  of  plants  being  stationary  and  ani- 
mals locomotive,  strike  us  so  forcibly  by  reason  of  their 
being  distinctly  exceptions.  And  even  such  cases  are  excep- 
tions usually  only  during  a  part  of  their  lives,  such  as  the 
oyster  which  indeed  moves  about  during  the  early  part  of  its 
life  and  settles  down  to  a  hermit's  life  only  when  older. 
The  relative  necessity  of  locomotion  for  animals,  the  lack 
of  this  necessity  for  plants  is  clearly  connected  with  the  fact 
that  only  the  plants  can  stretch  out  their  roots  and  limbs,  the 
organs  thru  which  they  obtain  food,  more  and  more  the 
longer  they  live.  So  far  as  their  limbs  are  concerned,  this 
means  no  more  than  an  enlargement  of  the  receptive  sur- 
face exposed  to  the  air  and  the  light.  But  the  growth  of  the 


12  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHEE-ONE. 

roots  means  mora  than  an  enlargement  of  the  receptive  sur- 
face. The  motion  of  the  soil  liquid  thru  the  capillaries  of 
the  soil  is  immensely  restricted  in  comparsion  with  the 
motion  of  the  air.  There  would  be  an  approach  to  exhaus- 
tion of  the  nutritive  elements  of  the  soil  needed  by  the  roots 
if  the  roots  did  not  penetrate  into  ever  new  portions  of  the 
soil,  where  the  possibility  of  exhaustion  is  yet  far  removed. 
The  animal,  however,  not  having  roots,  must  move  bodily 
to  another  place  when  it  has  consumed  all  the  food  obtain- 
able at  its  present  locality. 

So  we  can  say  that  Nature  must  have  endowed,  and  has 
endowed,  animals  with  the  means  of  locomotion.  The  animal 
moves  on  when  for  some  time  no  food  has  been  taken  into 
the  digestive  cavity,  there  being  no  more  food  available. 
Let  us  not  say  that  the  animal  moves  because  it  is  hungry. 
We  are  trying  to  get  information  about  the  Other-One  and 
about  everything  material  (animals,  plants,  engines  and 
what  not)  to  which  he  might  be  compared  and  thereby  be- 
come clearer  to  us.  Now,  we  do  not  say  that  a  plant  ex- 
tends its  roots  because  it  is  hungry.  There  is  no  need  for 
saying  this  with  reference  to  an  animal  either.  And  no 
need  even  with  respect  to  the  Other-One.  Nothing  is  gained 
thereby,  unless  anyone  thinks  that  something  is  gained,  for 
example,  in  an  analogous  case  by  speaking  of  the  sea  as  the 
hungry  Neptune.  Nothing  becomes  clearer.  The  animal 
moves  because  for  some  time  no  food  has  been  taken  into 
the  digestive  cavity.  This  is  clear  enough.  Nature's  pur- 
pose in  the  motion  is  to  remove  the  animal  from  the  place 
where  there  is  no  food  to  other  places  where  there  may  be 
food. 

This  purpose  can  be  served  most  efficiently  if  the  loco- 
motion is  motion  in  a  straight  line,  for  motion  in  curves,  in 
serpentines,  in  zig-zag  lines  would  not  bring  the  animal  so 


LOCOMOTIOX.  1 


o 


quickly,  with  so  little  expenditure  of  energy  of  the  living 
body,  from  the  first  place  to  a  second  place  removed  from 
the  first  possibly  a  considerable  distance.  The  act  of  loco- 
motion, therefore,  a  form  of  behavior  called  forth  by  the 
stimulus  of  lack  of  food,  is  locomotion  in  a  straight  line. 
We  must  not  regard  it  as  astonishing  that  the  stimulus 
should  be  something  negative,  the  lack  of  something.  When 
I  turn  to  my  neighbor,  hand  him  the  newspaper  and  ask  him 
to  read  the  head  lines,  I  expect  him,  too,  to  respond  to  some- 
thing negative.  And  I  find  that  he  can  do  it,  can  respond 
to  the  black  letters.  What  we  call  black  is  physically  the 
absence  of  light.  Responding  to  lack  of  food  is  therefore 
no  exceptional  case.  The  details  of  physiological  mechanics 
bringing  about  motion  in  a  straight  line  when  this  stimulus 
acts  on  the  animal,  do  not  concern  the  psychologist  especi- 
ally. They  may  be  studied  in  a  suitable  zoological  text- 
book. All  that  we  have  to  emphasize  here  is  the  fact  that 
Nature  has  made  animals  so  that  lack  of  food,  acting  as  a 
stimulus,  brings  about  as  a  response  to  that  stimulus  .. 
locomotion  in  a  straight  line.  This  locomotion  in  (gen- 
erally) a  straight  line  is  the  most  fundamental  kind  of 
animal  behavior,  universally  applicable  from  the  lowest 
species  to  the  highest  of  the  animal  kingdom,  to  Man.  We 
want  to  remember  it  as  the  most  fundamental  form  of  be- 
havior. Gradually  we  shall  add  to  it  an  ever  increasing  list 
of  further  forms  of  behavior  serving  the  ever  growing  needs 
of  the  organism  in  its  evolution. 

Having  introduced  in  the  last  paragraph  the  concept  of 
a  "stimulus,"  we  must  have  a  clear  conception  of  what  is 
meant  thereby.  There  are  many  different  kinds  of  things 
of  a  physical  or  chemical  nature  which  may  act  on  the  body 
in  such  a  manner  that  a  chemical  change  results  in  the  body ; 
and  anything  that  is  capable  of  doing  this  may  be  called  a 


14  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

stimulus.  A  candle  which  illuminates,  a  violin  which 
sounds,  a  brick  which  presses  on  the  skin,  influences  of  all 
kinds  capable  of  mechanically  or  chemically  tearing,  dis- 
solving the  living  tissue,  such  as  cutting  knives,  tearing 
saw  blades,  burning  acids,  also  volatile  substances  like  cam- 
phor, cheese,  perfume,  substances  soluble  in  our  mouth  like 
sugar,  salt,  alum,  temperatures  of  a  substance  (gaseous, 
liquid  or  solid)  in  contact  with  the  body  which  are  higher 
than  the  temperatures  of  the  body  tissues,  temperatures 
which  are  lower  than  the  temperatures  of  the  body  tissues, 
even  electrical  currents  and  the  increase  or  decrease  of  an 
electrical  current,  these  and  many  other  substances  or  con- 
ditions of  substances  may  be  called  stimuli  when  they  have 
a  chance  to  bring  about  in  the  body  of  an  animal  or  a  plant 
a  chemical  change.  It  is  evident  that  the  meaning  of  the 
word  stimulus  is  far  extended  over  its  original  meaning 
which  is  that  of  a  pointed  stick  used  by  the  ancient  Romans 
(and  still  used  by  the  inhabitants  of  certain  countries)  .o 
drive  their  draft  animals,  their  oxen. 

We  have  also  introduced  the  concept  of  a  "response." 
The  response  is  the  effect  of  a  stimulus,  but  not  its  direct 
effect.  The  direct  effect  of  the  stimulus  is  the  chemical 
change,  a  change  of  the  usual  chemical  constitution  of  the 
tissue  affected  into  another  and  less  usual  one.  This  change 
we  shall  always  in  this  book  call  the  "excitation." 

The  excitation  in  turn  calls  forth  what  we  shall  name  the 
"response."  There  are  two  chief  kinds  of  responses.  In 
contractile  tissue,  in  muscles,  contraction  may  occur ;  and  in 
secretory  tissue,  in  glands,  secretion.  The  latter  is  of  con- 
siderably less  interest  to  the  psychologist  than  the  former, 
because  of  its  limited  social  significance.  Of  still  less  in- 
terest, for  the  same  reason,  are  such  rarer  forms  of  animal 
responsiveness  as  the  electric  strokes  of  animals  like  the 


STIMULUS   AND    EXCITATION.  15 

electric  eel  or  the  ray.  Let  us  remember,  then,  that  nearly 
always  for  us  the  effect  of  a  stimulus  is  an  excitation  and 
the  effect  of  this  in  turn  is  contraction.  Whenever  we 
choose  to  speak  only  of  stimulus  and  response,  we  omit  the 
intermediate  link,  the  excitation.  We  may,  of  course,  leave 
it  unmentioned  where  it  is  unnecessary  to  mention  it,  but 
we  must  not  forget  that  without  the  excitation  the  stimulus, 
directly,  does  not  produce  any  response. 

In  the  usage  of  language  we  often  substitute,  for  brevity's 
sake,  a  simple  noun  for  a  whole  sentence.  In  order  to  refer 
by  a  simple  noun  to  the  fact  "that  living  tissues  are  capable 
of  undergoing  a  rapid  and  pronounced  chemical  change 
when  acted  upon  by  a  stimulus,"  we  shall  in  this  book  use 
the  abstract  term  "sensitivity."  The  corresponding  ad- 
jective is  sensitive. 

In  higher  animals  we  find  differentiated  sensitive  tissue. 
The  meaning  of  "differentiated"  is  easily  understood.  In 
the  very  lowest  animals  every  part  of  the  body  has  the  same 
properties  as  every  other.  Every  part  is  equally  sensitive, 
for  example.  In  the  higher  animals,  however,  certain  parts 
of  the  body  are  so  much  more  sensitive  than  others  that  we 
give  them  the  special  name  of  sensitive  tissue.  Let  us 
illustrate  the  distinction.  Sunlight  falling  upon  our  hand 
produces  there  very  little  effect,  and  even  this  only  very 
slowly.  It  takes  days  or  weeks  before  we  can  notice  that 
the  skin  darkens.  The  skin  is  very  slightly  sensitive  to 
light.  The  same  light  falling  upon  the  retina  of  the  eye  for 
only  a  hundredth  of  a  second  produces  there  a  profound 
chemical  change.  W^hen  a  part  of  the  body  has  assumed 
one  among  the  properties  which  all  living  tissues  possess, 
for  example  sensitivity,  to  such  a  degree  that  we  almost 
forget  that  it  has  those  other  properties  too,  altho  but 
weakly,  we  say  that  it  has  become  differentiated. 


16  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

That  we  call  the  body  material  "tissue"  is  due  to  the 
purely  fortuitous  fact  that,  when  living  bodies  were  first 
examined  under  the  microscope,  they  seemed  somewhat  to 
resemble  "woven  material,"  the  meaning  of  the  French 
word  tissue. 

The  changing  of  undifferentiated  tissue  into  sensitive 
tissue  is  naturally  only  one  of  several  forms  of  differentia- 
tion. Among  those  properties  of  the  undifferentiated  tissue 
which  especially  interest  us  we  find,  in  addition  to  sensi- 
tivity, contractility  and  conductivity. 

All  tissues  are  contractile,  but  only  when  they  are  so 
differentiated  that  they  possess  a  high  degree  of  contractility 
are  they  called  contractile. 

All  tissues  are  capable  of  conducting  an  excitation  from 
a  point  anywhere  within  the  tissue  thruout  the  whole  tissue ; 
but  only  when  there  is  a  high  degree  of  conductivity  (or, 
using  a  physical  term  that  means  the  same,  a  "low"  degree 
of  "resistance"  to  the  flow  of  the  excitation)  is  the  name 
"conductive"  applied.  One  must  not  think  of  conductivity, 
in  this  chemical  sense,  as  something  mysterious.  We  may 
well  think  of  it  as  something  comparable  to  the  conduction 
of  a  drop  of  syrup,  of  sugar,  thruout  the  contents  of  a 
tumbler  of  water  or  of  tea.  We  have  all  seen  the  sugar,  in 
such  a  case,  spread  thru  the  water  like  a  cloud. 

What  would  you  ask  for  if  sent  to  a  butcher  shop  in 
order  to  bring  home  samples  of  sensitive,  of  contractile  and 
of  conductive  tissue? — You  might  ask  for  an  eye  ball  or  a 
piece  of  the  skin  of  the  tongue  in  order  to  have  sensitive 
tissue.  Not  the  whole  eye  ball  is  differentiated  sensitive 
tissue,  of  course.  But  the  inner  lining  of  the  back  wall,  the 
retina,  is  tissue  extremely  sensitive  to  light.  The  taste  buds 
on  the  tongue,  further,  are  very  sensitive  to  certain  chemical 
substances,  like  sugar,  salt,  quinine,  when  these  are  placed 


SENSITIVITY,    CONDUCTIVITY,    CONTRACTILITY.         17 

upon  them  in  solution.  Differentiation,  after  having  sep- 
arated sensitive  from  other  tissues,  proceeds  and  separates 
tissue  sensitive  to  light  from  that  sensitive  to  chemical 
solutions,  to  sound,  to  warmth,  to  cold,  and  so  forth. 

When  asking  the  butcher  for  a  sample  of  contractile  tissue 
you  would  simply  ask  for  meat.  Our  muscles  are  our  dif- 
ferentiated contractile  tissue.  When  asking  for  conductive 
tissue,  you  would  ask  for  brains.  All  the  nervous  tissue  of  an 
animal  is  differentiated  conductive  tissue ;  but  the  only 
nervous  tissue  which  the  butcher  has  handy  for  you,  is  the 
bulky  mass  of  nervous  tissue  contained  in  the  cranial  cavity. 
Elsewhere  in  the  body  it  appears  only  in  small  pieces  not 
easily  handled  for  commercial  purposes. 

We  have  previously  warned  against  using  such  phrases 
as  hungry  in  the  explanation  of  an  animal's  behavior.  We 
have  before-hand  decided  to  reject  all  terms  that  have  a  sub- 
jective meaning,  that  refer  to  consciousness.  We  are  study- 
ing the  Other-One  in  preference  to  Our-Selves.  For  the  same 
reason  we  avoid  here,  in  speaking  of  sense  organs  (that  is, 
sensitive  organs),  the  use  of  the  term  sensations.  It  is  far 
better  to  use  the  term  excitations,  v/hich  has  no  subjective 
meaning.  Speaking  later  in  detail  of  the  functions  of  the 
several  senses,  again  it  will  not  be  advisable  to  speak  of  such 
sensations  as  green,  red,  and  so  on.  It  is  much  clearer  to 
use  the  unambiguous  and  purely  objective  term  and  speak 
of  the  specific  excitation  green,  and  so  on. 

In  animals  made  up  of  differentiated  tissues  the  excitation 
obviously  cannot  serve  its  purpose,  of  causing  contraction 
in  contractile  tissue,  without  first  being  conducted  from  the 
sensitive  tissue,  where  it  originated  in  consequence  of  stimu- 
lation, to  the  contractile  tissue  that  is  to  act,  by  contracting, 
as  a  motor  of  the  body.  It  is  only  to  be  expected,  then,  that 
the  elements  or  neurons  (the  "cells"  in  the  strictest  terminol- 


18  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 

ogy  of  biology,  not  in  the  loose  sense  in  which  biology  still 
speaks  of  a  "nerve  cell")  making  up  the  conducting  organ, 
the  nervous  system,  should  appear  in  the  shape  of  long  and 
thin  threads,  microscopical,  but  of  proportions  comparable 
to  those  of  telephone  wires.  The  reason  why  they  should 
have  this  shape  are  exactly  the  same,  too  evident  to  require 
enumeration,  which  give  this  shape  to  the  conductors  of  a 
telephone  or  telegraph  system. 

These  conducting  threads,  strings,  fibers,  or  whatever  we 
call  them,  of  the  living  body,  under  the  microscope  reveal 
to  the  eye  several  additional  features.  We  shall  discuss 
them  here,  not  so  much  because  the  psychologist  must  under 
any  and  all  circumstances  know  them,  but  rather  because 
the  present  beginner  in  psychology  ought  to  be  warned 
against  believing  that  the  knowledge  of  these  additional 
details  of  the  structure  of  neurons  constitutes  for  him  an 
important  part  of  psychological  knowledge. 

Of  great  importance  for  the  psychologist  is  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  principles  ("specifications,"  so  to  speak) 
underlying  the  architectural  plan  in  accordance  with  whic'.i 
the  nervous  system  must  have  been  built  up  by  the  Creator 
out  of  the  building  material.  The  neurons  are  this  building 
material.  These  functional  principles  conditioning  the  archi- 
tectural design  will  be  discussed  and  often  referred  to  in  the 
following  chapters  of  the  book  because  of  their  great 
psychological  significance. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  at  the  present  time,  the  details  of 
the  building  material  itself,  the  mere  structural  details  of 
individual  neurons  given  in  this  introductory  chapter,  do  not 
contribute  anything  essential  to  our  (present)  understand- 
ing of  psychological  problems,  altho  it  is  possible  that  new 
discoveries  in  the  future  may  allow  them  to  play  such  a  role. 

The  smallest  structural  elements  of  which  both  animal  and 


NEUEONS.  19 

vegetable  organisms  consist  have  for  about  a  century  been 
called  "cells."  This  means  literally  boxes — we  have  a  box 
under  our  house  which  we  call  a  cellar.  The  name  appears 
less  strange  to  us  on  knowing  that  those  structural  elements 
which  were  first  discovered  by  means  of  the  microscope 
happened  to  look  like  little  boxes.  These  were  plant  cells. 
It  was,  of  course,  soon  found  that  not  all  vegetable  elements 
of  structure  are  box-like.  Some,  for  example  the  long  and 
thin  flax  fibers  used  for  the  manufacture  of  linen,  do  nor 
resemble  a  box.  But  the  name  cell  had  already  been  adopted 
by  the  biologists  as  a  general  name  for  elements  of  structure 
and  was  now  applied  also  to  those  elements  to  which  it  was 
not  applicable  in  its  literal  meaning.  It  was  equally  applied 
to  the  elements  of  structvire  in  the  vegetable  and  animal 
kingdom,  and  the  whole  growing,  living,  world  was — and 
is — said  by  the  biologists  to  consist  of  cells.  Accordingly 
the  strings,  which  serve  as  conductors  for  excitations  in  the 
bodies  of  higher  animals,  ought  to  be  called  cells,  too — per- 
haps nerve  cells  for  the  sake  of  distinguishing  them  from 
other  kinds  of  cells.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case.  The 
term  nerve  cell  has  come  to  mean,  vmfortunately,  something 
different.    We  shall  at  once  see  what  and  why. 

In  its  most  undeveloped  form  an  individual  unit  of  ner- 
vous tissue  is  a  small,  almost  spherical  body  (compare  fig- 
ure, at  a).  As  this  body  grows  it  becomes  pointed  in  one  or 
more  places  and  sends  out  a  string-like  prolongation,  which 
continues  to  increase  in  length  (figure,  at  b,  c  and  d),  ^o 
that  it  may  become  easily  a  hundred  thousand  times  as  long 
as  it  is  thick,  reaching  a  total  length  of  several  feet,  whereas 
its  thickness  is  always  microscopical.  The  original  little  ball 
from  which  the  string  grew  out,  continues  then  to  exist  as 
a  relatively  thick  swelling  of  the  string.  We  must  remem- 
ber, however,  that  it  only  looks  thus,  that  it  did  not  originate 


20  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

as  a  swelling  of  the  string.  Being  relatively  bulky,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  understand  that  this  thickened  part  of  the 
string  should  have  attracted  the  interest  of  investigators  be- 
fore the  exceedingly  fine  string.     When  it  was  first  the 


a 


GROWTH    OF    A    NEURON. 

object  of  biological  research,  its  belonging,  as  a  part,  to  the 
long  and  fine  fiber  was  quite  overlooked.  It  was  studied  as 
an  individual  thing,  and  the  name  cell,  generally  applied  to 
the  elements  of  biological  structure,  was  applied,  instead  of 
to  the  whole  fiber  with  its  swelling,  to  the  swelling  alone, 
which  was  called  a  nerve  cell.  So  the  inconsistent  use  of 
the  word  cell  in  its  application  to  nervous  tissue,  referred 
to  above,  came  about  and  is  still  almost  universal. 

Since  about  1890  a  new,  unambiguous  terminology  has 
come  into  u:e,  which  we  adopt.  We  call  the  whole  structure, 
the  fiber  with  its  swelling,  a  neuron,  the  fiber  without  its 
swelling  simply  fiber  or  string,  and  the  swelling  alone  a 
ganglion  cell.     Ganglion  cell  and  nerve  cell  mean  the  same. 

The  use  of  the  word  ganglion  cell  is  explained  thus :  In 
nervous  tissues  gray  looking  masses  are  frequent  which, 
on  microscopical  examination,  reveal  themselves  as  ac- 
cumulations of  swellings  carrying  with  them,  naturally,  the 
contiguous  pieces  of  their  fibers.  It  is  as  if  we  had  a  large 
number  of  '"Opes  each  having  a  knot  somewhere  and  had 


NEURONS. 


21 


taken  all  these  knots  in  one  of  our  hands.  Such  a  mass  of 
nervous  tissue  has  long  been  called  a  ganglion.  Now,  it  is 
a  peculiar  biological  fact  that  these  swellings  of  neurons  are 
not  found  simply  here  and  there  in  isolation,  but  that  they 
are  always  found  in  groups,  sometimes  not  very  large, 
sometimes  very  bulky — these  very  ganglions.  Since  the 
swellings  of  the  neurons  are  found  only  in  ganglions,  they 
have  been  given  the  name  of  ganglion  cells  in  addition  to  the 
name  of  nerve  cells. 

Many  are  the  forms  in  which  the  neurons  present  them- 
selves.   Our  next  figure  shows  an  assortment  of  them.    The 


^-^^ 


b        c         d        e 

TYPES  OF   NEURONS. 

swelling  may  be  at  one  of  the  ends  as  in  the  case  of  a  and 
c  of  the  figure,  or  away  from  either  end  as  in  the  case  of  b, 
d,  and  e.  The  long  fiber  may  split  into  two  fibers  as  in  c, 
or  even  into  more.  The  swelling  may  happen  to  occur  just  at 
the  point  of  division  of  the  string.  In  this  case  the  neuron 
looks  like  d.  The  string  may  in  its  course  turn  sideways, 
form  a  kind  of  loop,  and  continue  from  the  turning  point 
in  the  original  direction.  If  now  the  swelling  happens  to 
be  at  the  place  of  the  loop,  the  neuron  must  look  like  c. 
In  all  these  varieties  of  form  we  find  the  same  structure,  a 


22  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 

string  with  a  swelling.  Some  years  ago,  when  the  interest 
of  the  histologists  was  still  in  the  main  restricted  to  the 
ganglion  cell,  various  kinds  of  such  cells  used  to  be  dis- 
tinguished according  to  the  number  of  long  fibers  which 
they  appeared  to  send  out,  and  called  unipolar  (a),  bipolar 
(b)  and  multipolar  (d)  cells.  Since  the  ganglion  cell  ha.^ 
ceased  to  be  regarded  as  an  element  of  structure  in  the 
earlier  sense,  these  distinctions  and  names  have  practically 
lost  their  significance.  The  neuron  is  essentially  a  string 
capable  of  conducting  an  excitation  from  one  end  to  the 
other.  All  its  structural  and  functional  properties  are  neces- 
sarily subservient  to  this  end,  to  conduction. 

Certain  features  of  the  neurons,  which  have  not  yet  been 
shown  in  our  figures,  should  still  be  mentioned.     We  said 


COLLATERALS. 

that  the  long  fibers  sometimes  split  into  two  fibers.  Another 
breaking  up  of  a  fiber  may  occur  in  a  manner  similar  to  the 
way  in  which  a  river  takes  up  large  tributaries,  forming 
approximately  right  angles.  Such  tributaries  of  a  neuron 
are  called  collaterals. 

Still  another  feature  of  the  neurons  is  to  be  mentioned. 
Each  ending  of  a  nervous  string  looks  somewhat  like  the 
frayed-out  end  of  a  thread.  The  end  breaks  up  into  a  large 
number  of  relativelv  ort  branches,  the  so-called  terminal 
arborization  (in  the  figure  of  a  ganglion  cell  at  a).  In  ca  .e 
the  swelling  of  the  neuron  happens  to  be  located  at  one  of 


NEURONS. 


23 


the  ends  of  a  neuron,  these  small  branches  must  naturally 
come  out  of  the  swelling  itself.  This  end  brush  directly  pro- 
ceeding from  the  swelling  is  said  to  consist  of  dendrites, 
which  is  a  Greek  name  meaning  about  the  same  as  the  Latin 


GANGLION  C-ELL. 


name  terminal  arborization,  that  is,  tree-like  branchings.  In 
the  figure  of  a  ganglion  cell  a  neuron  is  represented  whose 
main  fiber  is  relatively  short,  almost  shorter  than  the  den- 
drites. This  shortness,  however,  is  not  the  rule,  but  rather 
the  exception.  The  main  fiber,  often  also  called  axis  cylinder, 
usually  greatly  exceeds  the  dendrites  in  length. 

There  is  frequently  a  difference  in  coloring  between  the 
parts  of  a  neuron.  The  ganglion  cell  looks  dark,  the  fibers 
lighter.  This  has  given  rise  to  the  distinction  of  white  and 
gray  matter  in  the  brain — gray  matter  taking  its  name  from 
the  presence  of  numerous  dark  ganglion  cells  among  the 
fibers.  In  the  brain  there  seems  to  be  a  peculiar  advan- 
tage— not  yet  perfectly  understood — in  having  the  gr^" 
matter  spread  out  over  the  surface,  the  cortex,  in  as  thin  a 
layer  as  possible.  To  this  end  the  surface  is  much  increased 
by  the  formation  of  large  folds,  separated  by  deep  fissures, 
as  seen  in  the  figure  of  the  frontal  section  of  the  right  cere- 
bral hemisphere.  The  surface  of  the  brain  is  estimated  to 
be  equal  to  a  square  with  a  side  eighteen  inches  long    With- 


24 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 


out  the  fissures  the  surface  would  be  only  about  one-third 
of  this.  The  mixture  of  ganglion  cells  and  fibers  makii.g 
up  the  gray  matter  is  illustrated  by  the  three  figures  show- 


FRONTAL  SECTION  OF  THE  RIGHT 
CEREBRAL,  HEMISPHERE. 


ing  in  microscopical  enlargement  sections  of  the  cerebral 
cortex,  stained  either  so  that  only  the  ganglion  cells  are 
visible  or  so  that  only  the  fibers  are  visible.  Actually  both 
are  present  in  the  same  piece  of  gray  matter.  The  popular 
idea  that  the  gray  matter  is  of  greater  importance  than  the 
white  matter,  is  of  course  a  superstition. 

The  ganglion  cells  have  a  delicate  interior  structure,  and 
even  the  fibers  are  not  simple,  but  possess  an  interior  struc- 
ture, so  that  they  may  be  said  to  consist  of  fibrils.  About 
the  functional  significance  of  these  inner  divisions  of  a 
neuron  too  little  is  at  present  definitely  known. 

The  question  as  to  the  function  of  the  ganglion  cell  and 
the  function  of  the  fibrous  parts  of  the  neuron  is  answered 


NEUEONS. 


25 


at  present  in  a  manner  very  different  from  that  which  .vas 
customary  fifty  years  ago.    It  was  then  often  asserted  that 


SECTIONS  or  THE  CEREBRAL  CORTEX. 
Ganglion   cells  stained.  Fibers  alone  stained. 


the  ganghon  cells  were  the  residences  of  ideas,  each  little 
box  the  seat  of  one  idea,  so  that  the  total  mental  capacity 


26  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

of  a  person  might  be  determined  by  counting  the  number  of 
his  ganghon  cells.  Men  of  science  nowadays  recognize  tha: 
an  idea,  something  subjective,  spiritual,  mental,  cannot  Le 
said  to  be  seated  anywhere.  The  ganglion  cells  do  not  have 
any  more  direct  and  more  important  relation  to  the  Other- 
One's  life  than  that  of  the  conducting  strings.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  shall  in  the  following  chapters  see  that  we  can 
fairly  well  understand  the  Other-One's  life  without  making 
any  reference  to  his  ganglion  cells.  Their  physiological 
significance  is  probably,  in  the  main,  only  of  the  following 
two-fold  kind. 

The  ganglion  cell  is  the  point  of  vegetation  in  the  neuron, 
so  to  speak,  from  which  all  growth  proceeds ;  and  it  is  the 
storehouse  from  which  the  neuron  in  any  emergency  can 
quickly  draw  the  means  of  subsistence.  Let  us  elaborate 
this  statement. 

We  have  seen  that  the  whole  string  of  a  neuron  grows 
from  a  little  sphere.  This  sphere  continues  to  exist  even 
after  the  neuron  with  all  its  ramifications  has  obtained  its 
full  development,  and  is  then  the  ganglion  cell  of  the  neuron. 
If  growth  is  necessary  later,  say,  because  a  branch  of  the 
neuron  has  been  cut  oflf  or  otherwise  destroyed,  new  growth 
proceeds  from  that  point  of  the  string  which  is  farthest 
from,  but  still  connected  with,  the  ganglion  cell. — On  the 
other  hand,  if  a  conducting  string  is  continually  used  for 
hours,  changes  in  the  appearance  of  its  ganglion  cell  occur 
which  probably  indicate  changes  of  a  chemical  nature,  called 
by  the  physiologists  signs  of  fatigue.  It  seems  that  the  string, 
in  order  to  serve  continuously  for  a  long  time  as  conductor 
of  an  excitation,  needs  to  be  resupplied  with  certain  chemi- 
cals, and  that  these  chemicals  are  kept  in  store  for  the 
string  within  the  ganglion  cell,  which,  because  of  its  size, 
is  less  quickly  exhausted  than  the  string.     Whether  the 


NEURONS.  27 

ganglion  cell  has  any  significance  in  addition  to  those  func- 
tions which  have  just  been  mentioned,  seems  doubtful. 

Let  us  recall,  now,  what  we  said  to  be  the  most  funda- 
mental of  the  many  diverse  forms  of  animal  behavior.  Every 
animal,  we  said,  is  by  Nature  so  made  that  lack  of  food, 
acting  as  a  stimulus,  brings  about  as  a  response  locomotion 
in  a  straight  line.  We  have  to  add  to  this  behavior  a  second 
form,  which  is  of  equally  fundamental  importance.  An 
animal,  in  its  forward  march,  is  likely  to  meet  an  obstacle, 
for  instance,  a  piece  of  rock,  or  a  tree,  or  whatever  may  be 
heavy  enough  so  that  the  weight  of  the  animal  would  not 
suffice  to  push  it  aside.  Unless  the  animal  had  a  locomotor 
ability  beyond  that  of  moving  in  a  straight  line,  such  an 
obstacle  would  forever  stop  it,  would  cause  its  early  death 
by  starvation. 

Nature  therefore  has  given  every  animal  a  second  form  of 
behavior,  that  of  avoiding  the  obstacle  by  changing  its  own 
position,  its  direction,  in  front  of  an  obstacle,  so  that,  when 
further  proceeding  in  a  straight  line,  it  would  leave  the 
opposing  object  at  the  side  of  its  path.  It  is  decidedly  worth 
while  to  study  in  detail  a  very  simple  mechanism  capable 
of  changing  the  direction  of  an  animal  in  front  of  an  ob- 
stacle, because  we  learn  thus  how  exceedingly  simple  such 
a  mechanism  may  be,  and  how  unwarranted  would  be 
assumptions  of  mysterious  properties  of  animals,  of  'Vital 
forces"  and  the  like,  assumptions  toward  which  we  are  all 
too  inclined  because  of  the  poetical  rather  than  scientific 
way  of  thinking  of  the  mass  of  human  society  of  which  we 
are  a  part. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Other-One   manifests   Machine-like  Reactions. 

Let  us  imagine  a  lump  of  living  tissue  having  the  shape 
of  a  snail.  Let  us  for  simplicity's  sake  call  it  a  snail.  Let 
us  examine  and  answer  the  question  if  this  animal  could 
"live,"  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Other-One  lives,  however 
remote  the  resemblance  of  their  lives  may  be.  The  animal 
we  are  imagining  is  still  a  little  simpler  than  a  real  snail.  Our 
snail  has  no  house  (not  all  snails  have  a  house),  no  tentacles, 
no  nervous  system,  no  differentiated  tissue  whatsoever  so 
far  as  it  concerns  us.  It  is  simply  a  lump  of  undifferentiated 
tissue  of  the  shape  of  a  snail.  But  it  has  a  mechanism 
driving  it  forward  in  a  straight  line  in  response  to  the 
stimulus  of  lack  of  food.  The  details  of  this  mechanism, 
however,  do  not  interest  us  at  all. 

When  placed  on  a  pane  of  glass  and  observed  only  with 
respect  to  its  silhouette,  the  picture  of  this  imaginary  snail 
is  as  simple  as  the  outline  given  in  our  figure.  What  hap- 
pens now,  if  the  snail  is  gently  touched,  say,  at  the  front 
end  in  the  place  marked  in  the  figure  ?  Owing  to  its  sensi- 
tivity, the  tissue  touched  undergoes  a  chemical  change.  We 
say  that  it  becomes  excited.  Being  contractile,  the  tissue 
reacts  to  its  state  of  excitation  by  contracting.  All  the 
tissue  of  the  right  side  of  the  head  becomes  immediately 
concentrated,  condensed,  into  the  space  shaded  in  the  figure. 
The  head  assumes  an  unsymmetrical  form  like  the  one 
shown  in  the  figure. 

The  excitation,  first  caused  only  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  point  touched,  spreads  now  in  consequence  of  the  con- 

(28) 


SNAIL   TURNING  29 

ductivity  of  the  tissues.  It  spreads  slowly  thruout  the  whole 
body.  Even  after  having  reached  the  most  remote  part, 
the  excitation  continues  in  motion,  continues  to  distribute 
itself.  It  becomes  weaker  in  the  part  where  it  originated, 
stronger  in  the  remote  parts,  until  its  strength  has  become 
the  same  everywhere,  until  the  chemical  constitution  of 
the  body,  different  in  different  places  just  after  the  stimulus 
was  applied,  again  is  uniform  all  thru  the  body. 

Wherever  the  excitation  reaches  in  its  movement  thru 
the  body,  contraction  of  the  tissues  occurs.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  region  where  the  excitation  originated  and 
where  it  now  weakens,  that  is,  in  the  shaded  space  of  the 
figure,  the  original  contraction  weakens. 

We  must  understand  that  we  are  imagining  our  snail  to 
be  sponge-like.  We  suppose  that  coritraction  in  a  part  of 
this  sponge,  since  the  material  is  made  to  occupy  less  volume 
when  contracted,  makes  that  part  denser  in  a  physical  sense. 
This  implies  a  greater  weight  per  volume  unit.  The  tissues 
become  now  gradually  denser,  heavier,  in  the  remoter  parts 
and  simultaneously  less  dense  from  moment  to  moment  in 
the  region  where  the  stimulation  occurred,  in  the  shaded 
space. 

This  change  of  the  density  of  the  tissues,  however,  ac- 
companying the  gradual  spreading  of  the  excitation,  is  itself 
gradual,  not  sudden,  and  thus  does  not  produce  any  further 
deformation  of  the  body  surface,  of  the  animal's  shape, 
like  that  which  followed  the  sudden  application  of  the 
stimulus.  After  a  second  or  two,  we  find  the  body  with  a 
weak  uniform  excitation,  with  a  weak  uniform  contraction, 
and  still  with  the  deformation  of  the  surface  at  the  place 
where  the  stimulus  was  applied. 

Now,  the  chemical  state  which  we  have  called  excitation, 
means  the  presence,  in  the  tissues,  of  chemical  substances 


30  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEK-ONE. 

which  are  not  ordinarily  there.     They  must  not  remain 
there.    A  case  of  illness  is  an  analogy.    If  we  are  sick,  have 


SNAir,    TURNING. 

a  fever,  this  also  means  the  presence  in  our  body  of  chemical 
conditions,  chemical  substances,  which  are  not  normally 
there.  If  they  remain,  our  life  gradually  weakens  and 
finally  ceases.  When  we  recover,  this  means  that  these 
abnormal  substances  are  being  removed  from  the  body,  that 
the  normal  chemical  constitution  is  being  restored  by  those 
forces  which  are  always  active  in  living  matter,  whose  study 
makes  up  the  branch  of  science  called  physiological  chemis- 
try. 

In  our  snail  now,  too,  the  normal  chemical  constitution 
of  the  body  gradually  returns.  As  it  returns,  the  state  of 
contraction  gradually  disappears.  The  body  slowly  ex- 
pands again.  It  expands  like  a  wrinkled  football  which  we 
blow  up.  It  expands  most  where  it  was  indented,  where 
the  surface  offers  least  resistance.  But  it  also  expands 
everywhere  else.  The  assumption  is  entirely  justified  that 
our  snail,  too,  in  expanding  loses  its  wrinkles,  so  to  speak. 


SNAIL   TURNING.  31 

The  deformation  disappears.  But  at  the  same  time,  since 
the  tissues  are  now  everywhere  sHghtly  and  uniformly  con- 
densed, the  effect  of  the  expansion  shows  everywhere  on 
the  surface  of  the  body.  The  expansion  shows  also  on  that 
side  of  the  head  which  was  not  stimulated.  This  brings 
with  it  a  change  of  the  situation  of  the  axis  of  the  body. 

Think  of  the  axis  (ab)  in  our  figure  as  if  it  were  a  knife 
edge  on  which  the  body  could  be  balanced  at  the  start. 
There  was  then  as  much  weight  of  the  body  on  one  side  of 
the  solid  line  as  on  the  other.  At  a  later  moment,  some  time 
after  the  deformation,  when  the  excitation  and  the  disturb- 
ed tissue  density  have  already  become  uniform  thruout  the 
deformed  body,  the  animal  could  no  longer  be  balanced  on 
this  knife  edge.  It  would  become  necessary  to  shift  the 
knife  edge  into  a  new  position  (say,  xy),  the  dotted  Hne.  in 
order  to  keep  the  deformed  body  now  balanced  on  it.  The 
weight  axis,  now,  of  the  deformed,  but  uniformly  dense, 
body  is  the  dotted  line. 

But  the  very  gradual  expansion,  which  accompanies  the 
disappearance  of  the  excitation  from  the  entire  body, — this 
redistribution  of  normal  density  and  weight — occurs  in  a 
body  which  is  already  uniformly  dense.  The  weight  dis- 
tribution on  tht  two  sides  of  the  knife  edge  (xy)  is  there- 
fore not  appreciably  disturbed  relative  to  this  knife  edge. 
The  second  position  of  the  knife  edge  on  the  ground  there- 
fore becomes  (approximately)  the  axis  of  the  body  restored 
to  its  normality  perfect  in  shape  and  otherwise,  as  it  was 
before  the  stimulation. 

Only  one  change  remains  as  the  consequence  of  the  stim- 
ulation. What  remains  is  a  change  of  the  situation  of  the 
animal.  The  part  of  the  animal  which  was  touched  is  now 
somewhat  removed,  sidewise,  from  the  point  in  space  where 
the  contact  occurred.    The  axis  of  the  animal  is  farther  re- 


32  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 

moved  from  the  point  of  the  stimulus  than  it  was  when  the 
stimulus  was  applied.  The  front  end  of  the  axis  points  in 
a  somewhat  different  direction.  The  animal  faces  a  dif- 
ferent direction.  It  is  the  same  as  if  the  mere  contact  had 
been  an  externally  applied  forceful  push. 

The  fact  just  mentioned  may  reveal  an  importance  quite 
out  of  proportion  to  its  simplicity.  Apply  it  to  the  problem 
of  getting  an  understanding  of  the  role  played  in  animal 
life  by  the  nervous  system.  There  was  no  nervous  system 
in  our  "snail."  We,  unfortunately  and  customarily,  look 
upon  our  "brain," — better,  our  nervous  system, — with  a 
peculiar  awe.  We  think  of  its  function  as  being  the  very 
essence  of  life.  We  have  to  learn  to  think  of  it  in  a  very 
different,  far  more  modest  manner,  if  we  desire  to  possess 
a  sane,  well  proportioned  view  of  animal  life. 

The  snail  whose  life  we  are  discussing,  needs  no  nervous 
system  in  order  to  live.    Suppose  the  snail  is  creeping  on  the 


SNAIL  AVOIDING  AN  OBSTACLE. 


ground  in  the  direction  of  the  arrow  I  in  our  figure.     We 
agreed  to  take  the  mechanics  of  locomotion  in  the  forward 


SNAIL    TURNING.  33 

direction  for  granted.  We  may  then  at  once  devote  our- 
selves to  the  more  special  problem.  The  snail,  creeping  for- 
ward, approaches  the  stone  which  accidentally  lies  in  its 
way.  and  the  right  side  of  its  head  comes  into  contact  with 
the  stone.  We  know  now,  from  our  previous  discussion, 
what  must  happen.  The  part  which  has  been  excited  by  the 
touch  of  the  stone,  contracts.  A  little  later,  expansion  of 
the  body  occurs,  but  the  expansion  not  only  of  the  part  near 
the  stone  but  of  all  the  body  with  practical  uniformity.  The 
result  is  a  change  of  position.  The  axis  of  the  snail  now 
assumes  a  position  more  nearly  that  of  the  arrow  II. 

The  internal  mechanism  which  caused  the  original  for- 
ward movement,  again  becomes  effective.  The  snail,  moving 
forward,  perhaps  again  comes  into  contact  with  the  stone. 
The  same  happens  as  before.  The  axis  turns  a  little  farther 
toward  the  left.  Again  the  forward  movement  begins  and 
now,  perhaps,  is  continued  without  touching  the  stone ;  the 
actual  path  being  approximately  that  indicated  by  the  broken 
solid  line  composed  of  parts  of  I  and  II. 

It  may  be  advisable  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  such 
an  animal  does  not  do  what  a  human  being  might  indeed  do : 
avoid  the  obstacle  by  "going  around  it."  Such  a  simple 
organism  merely  changes  its  direction  and  immediately 
proceeds  in  a  new  direction. 

What  we  have  described  is  by  no  means  an  extraordinary 
event  in  the  animal's  life,  an  unusual  kind  of  behavior.  It 
is  practically  the  complete  story  of  the  snail.  The  snail,  in 
order  to  live,  must  eat.  Lack  of  food,  continued  for  some 
time,  results  in  chemical  changes  in  the  body.  In  con- 
sequence of  structural  and  functional  properties  of  the  body 
which  we  cannot  study  here,  these  chemical  changes  bring 
about  a  forward  movement.  A  rock  (or  any  other  obstacle) 
lies  in  the  way.    If  the  rock  could  permanently  stop  the  for- 


34  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-OXE. 

ward  movement,  the  snail  would  starve  to  death.  But,  in 
one  or  several  stages,  a  change  of  the  situation  is  brought 
about  by  a  change  of  the  direction  of  the  animal's  axis. 
Now  the  snail  creeps  on.  Other  obstacles  which  may  be 
encountered  are  taken  in  the  same  way.  On  its  forward 
march  the  snail,  by  accident,  sometime  passes  over  edible 
substances,  which  stimulate  the  mouth  organs  and,  conse- 
quently, are  consumed.  Later,  lack  of  food  brings  about 
locomotion  again,  and  the  same  things  happen  in  the  same 
cycle. 

One  may  feel  inclined  to  exclaim :  An  animal's  life  cannot 
be  so  simple,  so  automatic  as  that, — dependent  on  the  mere 
accident  that  food  substances  should  be  in  its  fortuitous 
path !  But  why  not  ?  It  is  true,  many  a  snail  will  fail  to 
come  across  any  food  substances  and  die  of  starvation. 
Such  is  life !  But  enough  will  have  better  luck  and  live  to 
propagate  the  species,  for  food  adapted  to  the  needs  jf 
snails  is  common  on  earth. 

Not  onlv  food  is  obtained  in  this — if  one  wishes  to  call 
it  by  that  name,  "mechanical" — way ;  protection  against  in- 
jury is  thus  made  possible  too.  If  the  snail,  instead  of  ap- 
proaching a  rock,  had  come  near  a  directly  injurious  sub- 
stance, it  might  have  changed  its  route  even  before  touching 
that  substance ;  for  the  tissues  of  its  body  are  excited,  not 
only  by  touch,  but  also  by  many  other  influences,  for  ex- 
ample by  a  change  of  temperature,  or  by  the  efTect  of  a 
volatile  chemical  substance.  A  piece  of  camphor  instead 
of  a  rock  would  have  turned  the  snail  some  distance  before 
touch  would  have  been  possible. 

Another  important  method  of  protecting  itself  is  that  of 
completely  retiring  within  its  shell,  if  the  animal  has  one. 
This  again  reqviires  no  additional  mechanism.  We  silently 
presupposed  above,  that  the  touch  of  which  we  spoke  was 


SNAIL    TURNING.  35 

a  very  gentle  touch.  It  will,  of  course,  always  be  gentle  .f 
it  results  from  the  snail's — this  slowly  moving  animal's — 
own  motion.  If  the  touch  is  relatively  strong,  as  when  a 
child  touches  a  snail  with  a  straw,  the  excitation  resulting 
and  spreading  with  great  force  all  thru  the  tissues  must 
cause,  not  only  the  tissues  at  the  point  of  contact,  but  in 
quick  succession  also  the  neighboring  tissues,  possibly  all 
of  the  body,  to  contract  vigorously.  If  the  whole  body  con- 
tracts strongly,  it  must,  since  a  part  of  it  is  attached  to  the 
interior  of  the  shell,  necessarily  disappear  in  the  shell. 

A  somewhat  sophisticated  student,  nevertheless,  was  dis- 
satisfied with  this  description  of  the  animal's  life.  What 
will  happen,  he  asked,  if  the  stone  against  which  the  animal 
moves,  happens  to  touch  it  in  the  very  center,  neither  to  the 
right  nor  to  the  left?  Does  this  situation  not  require  a 
mysterious  vital  force,  a  will,  or  whatever  you  prefer  to  call 
it,  capable  of  turning  it  away  from  the  obstacle? 

Similar  problems  were  quite  the  fashion  in  the  claco 
rooms  of  the  philosophers  of  the  middle  ages.  If  you  place 
a  donkey  between  two  bundles  of  hay,  they  argued,  equally 
large  and  equally  sweet  smelling,  he  is  unable  to  move  in 
either  direction  and  must  starve  to  death,  unless  he  has  a 
mysterious  power,  such  as  a  will.  Any  farmer,  however,  no 
matter  whether  he  believes  in  a  free  will  or  in  determination 
by  natural  causation,  knows  better.  He  knows  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  make  two  bundles  of  hay  exactly  alike.  Only  a 
miracle  could  bring  that  about.  And  if  they  were  alike,  the 
slightest  motion  of  the  air  would  cause  the  one  nostril  of  the 
animal  to  get  more  of  the  aroma  of  the  hay  than  the  other, 
and  the  animal  would  turn.     So  it  is  here. 

The  animal  is  affected  by  many  forces  other  than  those 
which  we  are  studying  here.  For  example,  it  moves  on 
rough  ground.     The  fore  end  of  its  body  is  not   shaped 


36 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 


exactly  like  the  rear  end.  Being  moved  back  over  the  rough 
ground  in  consequence  of  a  touch  at  the  very  center  of  the 
front,  and  crawling  forward  again,  the  animal  could  only 
by  a  miracle  touch  the  stone  a  second  time  with  its  very 
center.  But  if  the  touch  occurs  only  slightly  to  the  right  or 
to  the  left,  the  next  touch  will  occur  still  more  to  one  side, 
as  we  have  seen ;  and  the  animal  will  soon  move  on,  leaving 
the  obstacle  sidewise. 

A  thoughtful  and  generous  student  of  our  book  here  in- 
terrupts us :  "We  have  convinced  ourselves,"  he  says,  "that 
our  imaginary  snail,  consisting  of  undifferentiated  tissue, 
does  not  need  a  nervous  system  in  order  that  it  may  live. 
Nevertheless, — why  should  the  Creator  be  so  stingy?  Does 
he  not  give  us  many  things  which  are  not  absolutely  neces- 
sary? He  might  have  offered  the  snails  which  populate  the 
gardens  and  forests  a  nervous  system  as  a  mere  luxury !" 

The  conducting  strings,  the  neurons,  we  have  learned,  are 
the  elements  of  which  a  nervous  system  is  made  up.     Sup- 


Cent 


f  a   I 
AN  IMPOSSIBLE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM. 


pose  now,  the  Creator  had  appointed  us  to  act  as  his  deputy, 
to  construct  a  nervous  system  and  to  offer  it  to  our  nerve- 
less snail.  Having  a  vague  idea  that  a  nervous  system  in  an 
animal  is  something  like  the  telephone  system  of  a  town,  we 
would  probably  unite  a  considerable  number  of  conducting 
strings  in  a  central  point,  like  our  figure  called  "An  impos- 


NERVOUS    SYSTEM.  37 

sible  nervous  system."  Altho  the  snail  can  get  along  without 
a  nervous  system,  why  should  it  not  get  along  even  better 
when  in  possession  of  our  gift ! 

Imagine  the  snail  has  accepted  the  gift  and  is  approaching 
the  obstacle,  the  rock  which  we  showed  in  our  figure.  The 
moment  when  the  contact  occurs  one  of  the  peripheral  ends 
of  the  nervous  strings  is  excited.  The  strings  are  so  dif- 
ferentiated that  they  have  an  immensely  greater  conduc- 
tivity, that  is,  lesser  resistance,  than  the  undifferentiated 
tissues.  The  excitation,  therefore,  is  conducted  to  the  point 
where  all  the  nervous  strings  are  connected  and  thence  with 
great  intensity  of  flux  along  all  the  nervous  strings,  thus 
reaching  effectively  all  the  parts  of  the  body.  Consequently, 
all  the  parts  of  the  body  contract  practically  at  the  same  time 
with  great  force.  A  prompt  and  relatively  strong  contrac- 
tion at  the  point  of  stimulation,  followed  slowly  (as  pre- 
viously described)  by  a  weak  and  uniform  contraction  of 
the  whole  body  is  no  longer  possible.  The  resulting  change 
of  position  is  also  impossible. 

The  body  in  its  entirety  contracts  and,  after  awhile,  ex- 
pands again,  to  touch  the  rock,  of  course,  in  exactly  the 
same  way  that  it  did  the  first  time.  In  consequence  of  the 
touch,  the  whole  body  contracts  again.  It  expands  again, 
contracts  again,  expands  again,  contracts  again,  and  so  on 
endlessly,  or  rather  until  the  animal  is  either  exhausted  or 
starved  o:  both.  Any  way  of  avoiding  the  obstacle  is  im- 
possible. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  snail  would  be  very  much  worse 
off  with  this  kind  of  a  nervous  system  than  without  any. 
Without  any  nervous  system  it  can  live  quite  well,  unless  it 
happens  to  have  exceedingly  bad  luck.  With  this  nervous 
system  it  cannot  live  any  more  than  a  human  being  could 
live  who,  whenever  he  saw  or  heard  anything,  instead  of 

18511  M> 


38  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

normally  responding  to  the  situation  presented,  would  in- 
variably have  an  epileptic  fit,  a  violent  and  entirely  useless, 
too  widely  spread,  unadapted,  muscular  contraction. 

If  our  snail  is  wise,  it  thanks  us  for  our  kind  intention 
but  begs  us  to  keep  our  gift.  Of  course,  all  that  we  have 
proved  is  that  this  particular  nervous  system  is  unacceptable. 
Another  kind,  differently  constructed,  might  be  an  accep- 
table gift. 

One  case  in  which  a  nervous  system  could  be  serviceable 
in  an  animal's  body  would  be  that  in  which  the  contraction 
is  to  occur  not  at  all  at  the  point  of  stimulation,  but  at  some 
other  point.  This  result  can  be  brought  about  by  conducting 
away  the  excitation  from  the  point  of  stimulation  by  string- 
like tissues  which  cannot  themselves  contract,  but  possess  a 
greater  conductivity  than  ordinary,  undifferentiated  tissues 
Carried  +o  another  point,  the  excitation  can  there  perform 
its  normal  action,  that  of  causing  the  contraction  desired  at 
that  point. 

This  kind  of  function  is  necessary  in  all  the  more  highly 
organized  animals,  in  the  insects  as  well  as  in  the  verte- 
brates. As  example  we  may  use  one  of  the  most 
familar  insects,  a  moth.  Everybody  knows  the  striking  be- 
havior of  a  moth,  its  flying  towards  any  source  of  light.  It 
is  the  result  of  the  nervous  connections  between  the  wing 
muscles  and  the  eyes.  The  right  eye  is  connected  (if  not 
exclusively,  at  least  better)  by  nervous  strings  with  the 
muscles  of  the  left  wing,  the  left  eye  with  the  muscles  of 
the  right  wing.  If  the  moth  has  the  source  of  light  on  its 
right  side,  the  right  eye  receives  more  light  and  consequently 
a  stronger  excitation  than  the  left  eye.  The  left  wing  then 
beats  the  air  more  forcefully  than  the  right  wing,  and  the 
animal  is  turned  to  the  right  until  both  eyes  are  excited  by 
the  light  with  equal  intensity;  that  is,  until  the  moth  flies 
directly  towards  the  light. 


BEHAVIOR    OF    A    MOTH.  39 

An  inquisitive  student  here  puts  before  us  a  question. 
"Is  this  behavior  of  the  moth  of  any  value  to  it?"  We 
answer  that  it  probably  is.  It  may  be  that  the  moth  is  thus 
aided  in  getting  to  places  where  food  is  obtainable.  It  is  true 
that  millions  of  moths  are  destroyed  thru  this  instinctive 
action  of  flying  toward  the  light.  Sources  of  light  de- 
structive to  moths  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  are  an  in- 
vention of  mankind,  rather  recent,  for  which  Nature  can- 
not be  expected  to  have  made  provision  in  giving  the  moth 
its  biological  inheritance. 

So  much  is  plain,  that  it  could  do  a  moth,  whose  anatomi- 
cal structure  is  (relatively)  so  highly  developed,  no  good 
whatsoever  if  an  excitation  caused  by  light  in  the  region  of 
the  head  would  cause  a  contraction  of  the  tissues  there,  in 
the  head.  In  order  to  be  of  any  value  to  the  animal  it  is 
necessary  that  the  chief  sensory  areas,  the  eyes,  and  the 
chief  motor  organs,  the  wing  muscles,  be  connected  with 
each  other  by  differentiated  tissues  of  the  conducting  kind, 
by  nerves. 

(The  student  who  has  but  little  biological  knowledge 
must,  and  might  here  at  this  moment,  be  warned  against 
confusing  the  terms  "connective  tissue"  and  "conductive 
tissue."  The  former  refers  to  an  entirely  different  kind  of 
tissue  with  which  this  book  is  not  concerned.  "Conductive 
tissue"  does  not  connect  by  binding  things  mechanically  to- 
gether, but  "connects"  only  by  conduction.) 

Will  it  side-track  us  if  we  discuss  here  briefly  another 
fact  which  is  of  great  significance  for  the  behavior  of  ani- 
mals ?  We  said  that  the  movement  of  the  moth's  wings  was 
caused  by  the  excitation  whic'-  comes  from  the  eye.  The 
question  may  be  asked  how  a  continous  excitation  like  that 
in  the  moth's  eye  can  cause  a  discontinuous  rhythmical, 
movement  like  that  of  flapping  wings.  We  have  no  need  to 


40  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 

explain  this  here  in  detail,  but  it  is  important  to  point  out, 
that  such  a  transformation  of  something  continuous  into 
something  discontinuous  is  an  exceedingly  common  occur- 
rence in  nature.  It  is  especially  important  to  note  that  it 
occurs  in  the  inorganic  world,  the  dead  part  of  nature,  as 
frequently  as  in  the  organic  world,  in  living  nature,  so  that 
we  cannot  be  accused  of  having  neglected  the  possible 
claims  for  recognition  of  any  so-called  vital  or  mental 
forces  when  we  simply  stated  that  the  wings  flapped  merely 
because  of  light  falling  steadily  on  the  animal's  eye. 

The  inorganic  world  offers  many  examples.  The  wind 
passing  steadily  over  the  surface  of  the  ocean  does  not 
cause,  by  friction,  a  mere  motion  of  the  surface  water  in 
the  same  direction.  It  causes,  as  we  all  know,  a  motion  of 
the  particles  of  water  mostly  in  a  vertical  direction,  up  and 
down,  causing  waves,  which  periodically  rise  and  fall  a 
considerable  height.  Or,  when  we  blow  a  whistle  steadily, 
the  result  is  a  rhythmical  movement  of  the  particles  of  air 
enclosed  in  the  whistle,  a  sound  in  the  physical  sense.  When 
water  flows  very  slowly  from  the  kitchen  faucet,  it  does 
not  fall  in  a  continuous  and  very  narrow  stream,  but  in 
periodical  drops.  Air  blown  under  water  thru  a  tube,  simi- 
larly rises  in  periodical  bubbles.  Nobody  thinks  that  such 
a  transformation  in  these  cases  requires  any  hypothetical 
vital  or  mental  forces.  To  assume  any  such  forces  in  the 
case  of  muscular  activity  is  equally  unnecessary.  What  we 
have  said  about  nervous  excitation  in  the  eye  causing 
rhythmical  motion  of  the  wings  is  all  that  need  be  said, 
unless  we  are  specially  interested  in  the  details  of  physiologi- 
cal science. 

After  this  deviation  we  return  to  our  problem  of  psy- 
chology. What  kind  of  a  nervous  system  could  be  regarded 
as  an  acceptable  gift  by  our  snail, — or  by  any  other  animal? 


NERVOUS    SYSTEM.  41 

We  saw  that  one  kind  of  behavior  is  impossible  to  the 
snail  or  any  other  animal  lacking  a  nervous  system,  namely, 
a  contraction  at  one  point  of  the  body  in  response  to  an 
excitation  started  at  a  different  point,  without  any  contrac- 
tion occurring  at  this  latter  point.  If  the  tip  of  one  of  the 
tentacles  of  a  snail — let  us  think  of  a  snail  with  tentacles — 
is  afifected  by  a  certain  stimulus,  say,  the  heat  of  fire,  it 
would  undoubtedly  be  safer  for  the  animal  to  move  back 
by  means  of  its  locomotor  organs,  however  far  these  are 
from  the  point  of  stimulation,  than  to  respond  strongly  by 
a  contraction  of  the  stimulated  tentacle  and  only  weakly  or 
not  at  all  by  action  of  the  locomotor  organs. 

We  see  at  once  the  close  connection  between  the  existence 
of  a  nervous  system  and  of  highly  developed  special  organs, 
especially  of  locomotor  organs.  Higher  animals,  having 
legs,  must  indeed,  because  they  have  these  special  organs, 
respond  to  stimuli  occurring  at  certain  excitable  points  of 
the  body,  far  from  the  legs,  by  pushing  themselves  forward 
or  back  on  their  legs,  and  perhaps  by  no  other  motor 
reaction.  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if,  in  order  to  put  the 
legs  in  action,  a  stimulus  had  to  be  applied  to  the  legs. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  illustrate  this  function  of  a  nervous 
system  by  animal  locomotion  exclusively.  Think  of  any 
other  form  of  reaction.  Think  of  a  dog  who  scratches  him- 
self. Different  motor  organs  (muscles)  must  move  a  leg 
to  a  different  place  according  to  whether  the  insect  bites 
here  or  there.  The  snail,  which  has  scarcely  any  specialized 
motor  organs,  just  on  this  account  does  not  absolutely  need 
a  nervous  system.  So  much  nervous  tissue  as  a  real  snail 
possesses,  serves  minor  purposes  which  do  not  much  con- 
cern us  here. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  an  animal  has  specialized  locomotor 
and  other  motor  organs,  fins,  wings,  or  legs,  with  double 


42 


PSTCHOLOGT  OF  THE  OTHER-OJTE. 


sets  of  mnsdes  for  forward  and  backward  niotion,  its  ner- 
Toas  sf^tem  mtist  be  designed  in  accordance  with  the  f ol- 
lowLsg  plan  and  cannot  be  dedgned  in  am^  other  waj  with- 
out defeating  its  pftirpose.  Certain  excitable  points  of  the 
body  nrast  be  connected  by  conducting  strings  with  certain 
contractile  tissoes  located  in  definite  points  of  the  body; 
other  excitable  points  nrast  be  connected  with  certain  other 
contractile  tissues  of  the  body 

If  we  ^nqsfify  our  way  of  exTre??  "r  I3iis  we  may  say: 
Bcch  sensory  (tibat  is,  esoitat '.e  :hr  body  must  be 

cmmected  by  a  condmctmg  strmg  wiz  '■:  :  :  :e  motor  (that 
is,  ccmtractile)  poimt  of  the  body. 

Remoiilber,  however,  that  the  facts  are  not  qmte  so  single 
£i  :  -e  expressed  in  these  words.     Actually,  a  single 

5t-    :-     7 oint  is  scarcdy  eve-  -    :      :  in  isolation,  and  a 


5  :  -  T    :       --.irtile  point,  a 

tracts  wiuie  all  other  fit 
T^"  ■':  "nl  statements  of  fund 
-  ^^in^  and  r^ectii^ 

r-  - "  T^ftoally  sm^nfer 

;;.  ■-  statements  £.r 

wisr  :':'.-:  .;' :  be  of  littl: 


fiber,  never  con- 

-=  ?t-     However, 

-  ■-?  purpose  of 

c'-^ct,  are 

-~  even 

:   t-  :3er- 

.'. :  -ght,  which  zt 

z    ;"-i:r3ients  may 

Tt.tr  i:  tr  :nith. 

;-t7-t5:   \-:.i   niost 


iho  &  tut 
--.V  not  \ 


— -  ♦  VJ-         II-*  -   - 


3?e.    Kqpler's  discover 
:  ;    STTTplificaticm  of  th 
.    we  can  well  affc : 


SEXSOET    AND    MOTOR    POI^TTS.  43 

as  ellipses  in  spite  of  the   :ac:    '  --:    '  "     ir:  not  strictly 
ellipses. 

We  must  proceed  in  Psychology."  in  the  55.me  -.vay.  Ar-.i 
we  shall  in  this  book  often  proceed  thus.  Only  by  ;:":> 
fying  the  facts  (using  good  judgment  therdn)  can  we  ir:-^ 
them  within  the  limits  of  our  thinking  capacitjr. 

This  justifies  our  speaking  of  the  connection  of  one 
sensorv'  point  with  one  motor  point  as  if  such  a  simple  ner- 
vous connection  actually  existed. 

We  may  represent  such  nervous  connections  graphically, 
that  is,  in  a  perfectly  arbitrary  design  selected  only  with 
reference  to  clearness  and  other  conveniences,  whidi  be- 
come apparent  at  a  later  time.  Each  sensory  point  S  in 
our  figure  is  connected  with  one  definite  motor  point  M  by 
a  conductor,  represented  in  the  figure,  of  course,  by  a  line. 
That  this  connecting  line  has  the  form  of  a  flat  arch^  made 
up  of  three  straight  lines,  is  by  no  means  essential.  We 
shall  gradually  find  that  this  form  has  sp^cia".  aivartizes 
which  no  other  form  -vi;'  ^>,-e  u?  a-       ;  '. 

Abstractions  make  dull  reainr  The  r.z:::  z-.'-.z'^z'' 
is  nothing  but  a  statement,  in  very  abstract  terms,  of  the 
advantages  to  be  derived  by  representing  a  nervous  con- 
nection by  an  arch  consisting  of  three  straight  lines.  Those 
who  dislike  dull  reading,  will  omit  the  next  cara—aph  arti 
pass  on  to  the  following. 

-^ny  graphical  representation  :t  such  a  ;"' taiive  tart  a? 
that  of  a  functional  connect:  :n  trtweer.  t  :  :^-t>  of  a  '■■:'—- 
body  is  an  important  means  ::'  i;?:-  -  r  th^  :  ::. 
fact  in  quantitative  terms.  In  th'f  :  .' :  r  .  ;  -  ;  ,  :y  is 
opened  for  the  development  of  a  ? : :  e ::  h :  :  r :  -  •  5 ;  ^  :•. :  h : 
theories,  scientific  laws,  are  -r-.rt  :::.::f  :-::  :r'  :: 
quantitative,  that  is.  math  /  :  .  :rn:^ 
descriptions  are  made  either  ;:::.;riicaiiy  igeon 


T   r  , 


44 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 


analytically  (arithmetically,  algebraically).  We  have  just 
shown  a  part  of  the  method  used  in  the  graphical  description. 
It  uses  a  very  definite  terminology,  so  to  speak.  The  "terms" 
are  arches  consisting  of  three  straight  lines  each.  We  shall 
later  see  that  this  enables  us  to  describe  important  nervous 
functions  in  arithmetical  terms.  And  this  quantitative 
method  will  enable  us  to  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  func- 
tions of  the  nervous  system  quite  impossible  if  we  had  stated 


s; 


m; 


Y 
> Y    ^ 

.,   ^   A 


NEURON    ARCHES:    DIAGRAMS   OF    REFLEX    PATHS. 


M. 


the  facts  in  purely  qualitative  terms,  as  is  usual  in  neuro- 
logical discussions.  However,  we  cannot  anticipate  these 
results  here.  We  merely  want  to  indicate  that  the  graphical 
representation  is  to  serve  a  very  definite  purpose. 

Now  let  us  speak  again  in  the  concrete.  Each  of  those 
straight  lines  means  a  neuron.  Each  of  these  arches  con- 
sists of  three  neurons.  We  may  place  the  arches  in  our 
graph  side  by  side  like  S^  M^  and  S^M^  and  S^M^.  Or 
they  may  be  drawn  nested  like  S^  M^ ,  ^b^^b  ^^^  ^a^a' 
Which  form  we  choose  depends  purely  on  which  form 
oflfers  the  greater  convenience  and  clearness  in  describing 
whatever  we  wish  to  describe. 

We  must  never  think  of  the  length  of  any  of  these  lines, 
but  only  of  their  number.  It  is  the  number  which  represents 
the  total  length  of  the  conductor.     In  the  form  where  the 


REFLEX     FUNCTIONS.  45 

arches  are  nested,  we  do  not  think  of  them  as  differing  in 
size.  On  the  contrary  we  think  of  them  as  being  all  exactly 
the  same  kind  of  arches,  drawing  them  of  different  sizes 
only  in  order  that  we  may  see  thein  in  separation  and  with- 
out confusion.  We  shall  see  later  that  the  size  of  any  arch, 
the  length  of  any  of  its  lines,  will  play  no  role  in  our  cal- 
culations of  the  intensity  and  direction  of  function.  Only 
the  number,  irrespective  of  the  length,  of  these  lines  will 
enter  into  our  calculations. 

The  function  of  one  of  these  nervous  paths  just  repre- 
sented by  arches,  from  S  to  M,  is  customarily  called  a  reflex 
function.  The  choice  of  the  word  "reflex"  is  due  to  the 
historical  accident  that  several  hundred  years  ago  this 
function  seemed  to  the  physiologists  of  that  time  to  be 
somewhat  comparable  to  the  reflection  of  light  from  a 
mirror, — namely,  in  promptitude. 

When  we  look  at  ourselves  in  a  mirror,  we  do  not  have 
to  wait  any  appreciable  time  before  our  image  appears.  It 
is  reflected  back  at  once.  Neither  do  we  have  to  wait  long 
before  a  person  upon  whose  toe  we  stepped  begins  to  pull 
away  his  foot.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  have  to  wait  a 
considerable  time  before  the  same  person  puts  his  hand  in 
his  pocket  and  draws  out  some  money,  after  we  have  asked 
him  to  lend  us  a  dollar,  or  ten,  or  a  hundred. 

Human  actions  seem  to  classify  themselves  naturally  into 
two  groups,  those  which  are  slow,  hesitating,  and  those 
which  are  quick  as  the  reflection  of  our  image  in  the  looking 
glass.  The  latter  kind  the  early  physiologists  called  reflex 
actions ;  and  we  still  call  them  so,  altho  we  nowadays  have 
instruments  which  enable  us  to  measure  even  the  shortest 
time  intervening  between  the  stimulus  and  the  response 
(the  reaction  time)  and  know  that  this  length  of  time  is 
rarely  less  than  a  tenth  of  a  second,  incomparably  longer 


46  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

tlian  the  time  occupied  by  the  retleclion  of  the  light  rays 
from  the  mirror. 

Those  other,  slower,  more  hesitating-  actions  are  often 
technically  called  by  psycholog-ists  "delayed  reactions." 
1  heir  delay  is  not  due,  as  a  student  might  think,  to  the  cur- 
rent in  those  functions  traveling  over  a  longer  path.  That 
delay  would  not  amount  to  much.  The  delay  in  "delayed  re- 
actions" is  undoubtedly  due  to  a  far  more  complicated  con- 
dition. Compare  pages  Z7  to  39  of  the  author's  "jManual 
of  Psychology  Demonstrations." 

One  of  the  simplest  methods  of  measuring  the  reaction 
tmie  is  by  the  use  of  the  instrument  of  which  the  essential 
parts  are  sketched  in  our  figure.  A  metal  post,  P,  bears  a 
lever  of  which  one  end  has  a  button  for  the  subject's  finger. 
1  he  other  end  of  the  lever  is  flexible,  is  a  steel  spring  cap- 
able of  vibrating  horizontally  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  times 


MEASURING     THE     REACTION      TIME. 


per  second.  This  vibrator,  V,  has  a  point  which  writes  on 
a  smoked  slide,  S.  H  is  a  hook  by  means  of  which  the  ex- 
perimenter pulls  the  slide.  A  pin  not  shown  in  the  figure, 
fastened  to  the  slide,  holds  the  vibrator  bent  sideways  until 
ic  is  withdrawn.  At  the  moment  of  pulling  H,  the  vibrator 
begins  to  make  a  sound  and  to  write  every  hundredth  of  a 
second  one  wave  on  the  moving  slide.  As  soon  as  the  sound 
acts  on  the  ear,  the  excitation  runs  to  the  arm  muscle,  the 
button  is  pressed  down,  the  vibrator  rises  and  ceases  to 
write.     And  the  number  of  waves  written  on  the  smoked 


REACTION  TIME  47 

slide  is  the  reaction  time,  generally  between  ten  and  twenty, 
in  hundredths  of  a  second. 

A  reflex  function  is  made  possible  by  the  existence  in 
the  body  of  the  animal  of  a  reflex  path,  a  chain  of  neurone 
connecting  a  definite  sensory  point  with  a  definite  motor 
point. 

The  remarks  following  this  paragraph  will  not  interest 
all  readers  and  may  be  passed  over.  We  cling  to  these 
terms  "sensory"  and  "motor"  points,  altho  others  would 
prefer  the  terms  "receptor"  and  "effector."  As  we  have 
previously  mentioned,  the  effects  of  excitations  are  con- 
tractions in  the  striped  (skeletal)  and  smooth  (organic) 
muscles  and  secretions  in  the  glands.  But  the  skeletal 
muscles,  being  the  chief  motors  of  the  body,  have  more 
social  importance  than  the  other  muscles  and  the  glands. 
Secretions,  compared  with  motions,  have  but  little  social 
significance  and  therefore  interest  the  psychologist  much 
less  than  the  physiologist.  In  our  figures  the  letters  S  and 
M  (Sensory  and  Motor  functions.  Sense  organs  and  Mus- 
cles) have  for  the  psychologist  a  better  suggestiveness  than 
the  letters  R  and  E  would  have, — in  all  languages.  For 
similar  reasons  we  shall  later  speak  of  sensory  and  motor 
neurons  rather  than  of  afferent  and  efferent  neurons.  There 
are  two  further  reasons  for  avoiding  the  words  afferent  and 
efferent.  They  are  difficult  to  distinguish  in  the  spoken 
language,  in  the  class  room.  And  they  suggest  to  the  stu- 
dent the  very  unfortunate  conception  of  the  brain  as  a 
reservoir  or  storage  tank  of  something. 

We  do  not  know  what  the  number  of  neurons  is  which, 
in  the  higher  animals,  make  up  reflex  paths.  It  is  quite 
arbitrary  that  in  our  graph  we  represent  this  number  by 
three.     There  is  however,   a   certain   probability  that   the 


48  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

actual  number  is  often  three  and  never  less  than  three.  In 
one  of  our  arches,  which,  since  they  represent  reflex  func- 
tions, might  well  be  called  "reflex  arches,"  for  example 
in  the  reflex  arch  S,  S^-  MJ-M  ,  the  conductor  S     SJ>  will 

C      c  c        c '  c         c 

for  obvious  reasons  be  called  a  sensory  neuron,  M^-M  a 
motor  neuron.     The  neuron  S^-MJ-  will  be  called  a  nerve 

c       c 
center. 

No  particular  meaning  attaches  to  the  word  "center"  in 
neurological  usage.  It  has  like  so  many  other  terms  a  purely 
accidental  historical  origin.  There  was  a  time  when  even 
scientists  believed  that  certain  parts  of  the  nervous  system, 
of  the  brain,  had  the  power  to  act  spontaneously,  to  direct 
by  their  own  sweet  will  the  actions  of  the  animal.  These 
parts  were  then  called  centers,  very  much  as  we  speak, 
without  being  able  to  give  the  word  any  literal  meaning, 
of  the  center  of  a  government  or  of  a  telephone  central. 

In  our  reflex  arch  we  mean  by  center  simply  that  neuron 
which  is  neither  a  sensory  nor  a  motor  neuron, — not  having 
either  of  its  ends  in  a  sensory  or  motor  point  of  the  body. 

We  may,  however,  choose  now  and  then  to  call  the  point 
S^  in  an  indirect,  derivative  sense  a  sensory  point.  But, 
to  make  this  clear  we  must  add  to  "sensory"  a  further, 
modifying  adjective,  for  example,  the  adjective  "central." 
That  addition  then  has  the  sense  of  a  negation,  of  a  limita- 
tion. 

Let  us  then  call  the  point  SJ-,  on  those  occasions  where 
we  find  it  convenient  and  desirable,  a  "central  sensory 
point."  The  addition  means  that  it  is  not  a  sensory  (sensi- 
tive) point  of  the  body.  This  is  no  uncommon  usage  of 
language  in  science.  In  physics  we  call  latent  heat  what  is 
not  heat,  what  has  no  temperature. 


CENTRAL  AND  PERIPHERAL  49 

A  central  sensory  point  is  a  point  in  a  nerve  center  from 
which  one  can  trace  a  shorter  path  to  a  (real)  sensory  point 
than  to  any  motor  point  of  the  body.  In  the  same  manner 
MJ-  will  be  called  and  regarded  as  a  central  motor  point. 
From  it  one  can  trace  a  shorter  path  to  a  motor  point 
(muscle)  than  to  any  sensory  point  of  the  body.  That  is 
all  that  is  meant.     Nothing  else. 

Speaking  of  sensory  and  motor  nerve  centers  has  been 
common  practice  in  neurology  from  its  early  history.  We 
have  here  merely  defined  these  terms  for  our  use  more 
exactly  than  is  customary. 

Having  called  S^-MJ-  a  nerve  center,  we  may  add  that  it 
is  a  "low"  or  "lower"  nerve  center,  for  we  shall  later  have 
to  learn  that  there  are  also  "high"  or  "higher"  centers.  The 
"lowest"  center  is  that  one  which  makes  the  shortest  con- 
nection, the  shortest  among  all  those  paths  which  may  exist, 
leading  from  the  definite  sensory  point  to  the  definite  motor 
point  under  consideration.  In  other  words,  each  particular 
reflex  function  depends  on  the  existence  of  a  particular 
low  nerve  center  serving  the  two  "corresponding"  peripheral 
points,  sensory  and  motor.  Peripheral,  of  course,  is  noth- 
ing but  a  common  term  including  both  sensory  and  motor. 
The  literal  meaning  of  "peripheral"  is  here  entirely  lost. 

A  student  feels  puzzled  when  he  is  asked  the  question  if 
he  could  deprive  an  animal  or  a  person  of  one  of  his  re- 
flexes by  cutting  it  out  with  a  knife.  The  question  is  really 
clear  and  concrete ;  and  the  answer  is  simply  "Yes."  Having 
a  reflex  means  no  more  than  having  a  definitely  located 
"chain"  of  neurons.  It  may  be  difficult  to  determine  its 
exact  location.  And  it  may  be  difficult  to  cut  it  out  without 
cutting  out  other  things  too.  But  these  are  difficulties  which 
exist  in  every  surgical  operation — in  varying  degrees. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Other-One's  Reactions  are  either  Concerted  or 

LocAiv 

The  purpose  of  a  reflex  is  to  insvire  that  the  action  take 
place  in  a  certain  locaHty  when  the  stimulation  occurs  in 
a  different  locality.  A  reflex  reaction  so  far  as  hitherto 
considered  is  a  local  reaction, — local  in  the  sense  of  not 
being  a  general  reaction  or  a  reaction  in  many  localities  of 
the  animal's  body.  But  local  action  is  not  always  the  action 
which  benefits  the  animal  under  the  circumstances  of  the 
case.  Let  us  look  for  examples  from  the  Other-One's 
daily  life. 

The  Other-One  climbs  a  tree.  He  does  that  by  applying 
two  hands  and  two  feet  to  the  tree  and  its  branches.  Climb- 
ing without  all  four  extremities  is  almost  impossible.  The 
four  limbs  must  co-operate.  That  does  not  mean  that  the 
muscles  of  all  the  limbs  must  contract  at  exactly  the  same 
moment.  But  they  must  contract  at  about  the  same  time. 
A  contraction  of  one  followed  by  a  contraction  of  another 
one  a  minute  later  could  not  be  called  climbing. 

As  we  have  pointed  out  in  another  connection  in  a  previous 
chapter,  in  order  to  understand,  to  make  plain,  to  "explain" 
the  facts,  we  must  simplify  them  as  much  as  possible, — in 
our  imagination  if  we  cannot  do  it  actually.  Is  it  possible, 
in  this  manner,  to  place  all  actions  which  are  not  "local" 
into  one  class  and  call  them  by  one  name  ?  The  title  of  this 
chapter  seems  to  assert  that  this  is  possible.  And  it  suggests 
as  name  the  term  "concerted." 

(50) 


CONCERTED    ACTION.  51 

Even  in  so  simple  an  action  as  hitting  a  table  with  a 
fist  a  large  number  of  muscles  are  involved.  The  very  fist 
is  the  result  of  the  contraction  of  certain  muscles  bending 
the  fingers.  The  downward  motion  of  the  fist  is  the  result 
of  the  contraction  of  certain  muscles  producing  various 
motor  effects,  chief  among  them  the  stretching  of  the  arm 
in  the  elbow  joint.  If  these  muscles  remained  contracted, 
the  fist,  after  having  hit,  would  press  the  table.  Other 
muscles  must  immediately  bend  the  arm  at  the  elbow  joint 
if  it  is  to  be  a  mere  hitting  without  continued  pressing  upon. 
They  must  begin  to  contract  even  before  the  stretching 
muscles  begin  to  relax. 

Any  such  actions  which  occur  (must  occur  in  the  nature 
of  the  case)  either  at  the  same  moment  or  at  almost  the 
same  time  or  in  such  quick  succession  that  one  is  justified  in 
saying  they  occur  at  about  the  same  time,  might  well  be 
called  concerted.  There  is  no  need  of  limiting  the  meaning 
of  the  term  concertedness.  It  may  very  well  include  actions, 
occurring  at  about  the  same  time,  which  have  various  ad- 
ditional temporal  or  even  other  relations.  This  abstract 
statement  will  be  illustrated  by  concrete  examples  of  such 
mutual  relations. 

When  one  hears  the  word  "concert,"  he  thinks  of  music. 
That  is  not  the  original  meaning  of  the  word.  It  means 
really  nothing  but  agreement  in  action.  In  European 
politics  during  the  nineteenth  century  one  used  to  speak  of 
the  concert  of  the  Powers.  But  with  no  other  kind  of 
agreement  in  action  are  we  so  familiar  as  with  that  of  a 
company  of  musicians  playing  before  us.  Their  concerted- 
ness of  action  can  teach  us  an  important  distinction  relative 
to  causes  and  effects,  which  we  have  to  make  also  in  speak- 
ing of  concerted  actions  in  any  animal  or  in  the  Other-One. 


52  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

The  questions  "Why  do  musicians  play?"  and  "Why  do 
the  musicians  play  in  concert?"  refer  to  very  different 
psychological  causes.  They  play  because  (if  we  give  a 
simple  and  striking  answer)  their  stomachs  are  empty.  The 
stimulus  is  lack  of  food.  They  want  to  make  a  living.  The 
stimulation  which  causes  the  concertedness  of  their  action 
is  an  entirely  different  one.  This  stimulus  comes  from  their 
leader,  their  conductor,  the  director  of  the  orchestra,  or 
whatever  you  call  him.  They  would  not  play  if  you  offered 
to  give  them  the  sight  of  their  conductor  as  a  substitute  for 
paying  them  money.  And  they  would  not  (could  not)  play 
in  concert  (according  to  the  highest  standards)  if  you 
offered  to  put  a  ten  dollar  bill  into  each  one's  pocket  as  a 
substitute  for  giving  them  their  leader.  The  stimulus  com- 
ing from  the  conductor  of  the  orchestra  is  a  sign  or  sound 
made  by  him.  If  a  musician  does  not  make  his  tone  at  the 
right  time  or  with  the  proportionate  pitch  or  strength,  the 
conductor  of  the  orchestra  acts  as  a  stimulus  which  makes 
the  laggard  speed  up  or  the  bungler  correct  himself.  The 
conductor  of  the  orchestra,  let  us  remember,  does  not  func- 
tion as  the  cause  which  makes  the  musician  play,  but  as  the 
cause  which  makes  him  adjust  his  playing. 

In  all  concerted  action  we  must  carefully  distinguish 
these  two  classes  of  stimuli :  the  class  of  stimuli  causing 
each  of  the  local  actions;  and  the  class  of  stimuli  causing 
the  concertedness  of  the  several  local  actions, — whatever 
this  concertedness  may  consist  in. 

Now  let  us  think  of  some  further  examples  of  concerted 
action  of  his  limbs  in  the  life  of  the  Other-One.  Having 
climbed  high  up  on  a  tree  he  wishes  to  pass  from  one  of  its 
large  branches  to  one  of  the  very  near  large  branches  of  a 
neighboring  tree.  He  passes  along  hanging.  In  this  activity 
his  two  arms  co-operate.     Deprive  him  of  the  use  of  one 


CONCERTED    ACTION.  53 

of  his  arms,  and  he  cannot  pass  along  the  branches  support- 
ed by  one  hand  only.  This  is  another  example  of  concerted 
action.  But  it  interests  us  not  only  as  an  example  of  con- 
certed action.  It  interests  us  still  more  by  being  a  con- 
certed action  which  is  a  part  of  the  concerted  action  of 
climbing. 

Being  a  part  of  a  complex,  it  is  in  a  sense  a  local  action. 
It  is  confined  to  the  arms,  whereas  climbing  is  an  action  of 
both,  the  upper  and  the  lower,  pairs  of  extremities.  An 
action,  therefore,  is  concerted  or  local  only  in  a  relative 
sense.  The  same  action  is  local  in  comparison  with  another 
of  which  it  is  a  component ;  and  concerted  in  comparison,  of 
course,  with  another  which  is  one  of  its  components. 

Walking  is  concerted  action  because  it  consists  of  action 
of  the  two  legs  in  agreement.  Walking  is  local  action  be- 
cause it  is  action  in  the  locality  of  the  lower  extremities 
only,  not  a  concert  of  the  lower  and  upper  extremities  as 
is  climbing. 

Standing  on  one  foot  is  local  action ;  and  at  the  same 
time  concerted,  in  so  far  as  it  involves  co-operative  action  of 
many  muscles.  Picking  an  apple  from  a  tree  with  one  hand 
is  likewise,  in  a  relative  sense,  to  be  regarded  either  as  local 
(one  hand)  or  concerted  (hand.  arm.  shoulder,  standing 
feet.  etc.).  Treacling  the  pedal  of  a  machine  with  the  right 
foot  and  feeding  in  with  the  right  hand  material  for  the 
machine  to  work  on.  is  clearly  concerted  action ;  and  yet  it 
is  purely  local,  right-sided,  in  so  far  as  the  left  side  of  the 
body  is  inactive.  The  workman  might  have  lost  his  left  arm 
and  his  left  leg. 

When  a  student  is  asked  what  bodily  actions  his  teacher, 
perhaps  lecturing  during  a  whole  hour,  performed  during 
that  hour,  he  replies:  "He  talked.  He  used  his  speech 
organs."     And  that  would  be  a  very  exact  statement,  in 


54  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHEE-ONE. 

some  sense;  for  example,  before  a  jury  in  a  court  room. 
And  yet,  in  another  sense,  it  is  very  inexact.  A  local  action 
confined  to  the  speech  organs  is  quite  impossible  under 
normal  conditions.  The  lecturer  not  only  talks,  but  also 
stands, — or  sits,  in  accordance  with  his  temperament.  Stand- 
ing is  an  action.  If  you  do  not  believe  it,  if  you  think  it 
means  doing  nothing,  enjoying  a  rest,  ask  a  recruit  in  the 
army.  And  sitting  equally  is  an  action.  Is  a  hen  enjoying 
a  rest  while  sitting  on  eggs?  Certainly  not.  And  the  lec- 
turer, while  more  restful  in  the  sitting  than  in  the  standing 
position,  is  less  restful  than  he  would  be  in  the  lying  posi- 
tion. If  all  muscles  relaxed,  no  sitting  would  be  possible.  Be- 
sides, the  lecturer  must  keep  his  head  steady.  If  it  fell  up- 
on one  of  his  shoulders  or  his  che^t,  lecturing  would  be 
impossible 

We  see  from  this  last  example  that  a  "local"  action  signi- 
fies only  that  the  "main"  muscular  activity  is  confined  to  i 
certain  locality  in  the  body.  It  does  not  signify  that  there 
are  no  muscular  activities  outside  of  that  locality.  The 
latter,  however,  are  of  minor  importance  or  seem  to  be  so. 
A  purely  local  activity  in  a  biological  sense  is  virtually  im- 
possible. But  in  a  social  sense,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
those  among  whom  the  Other-One  daily  lives,  an  action 
may  be  called  purely  local.  It  means  simply  that  the  only 
activity  which,  at  a  given  time,  was  strong  enough  to  be 
significant,  conspicuous,  worth  mentioning,  was  the  action 
at  a  certain  locality  of  the  body. 

No  newspaper  reporter,  for  example,  would  mention  that 
a  politician  addressing  a  certain  audience,  in  addition  to 
talking,  kept  his  neck  muscles  under  tension,  washed  his 
eyes  by  winking  the  normal  number  of  times  per  minute, 
now  and  then  swallowed  saliva,  and  frequently  shifted  the 
weight  of  his  body  from  one  to  the  other  foot.     From  a 


CONCERTED    ACTION.  55 

social  point  of  view  the  politician  merely  talked.  He  did 
not,  for  example,  talk  and  dance.  This,  however,  the  re- 
porter could  rightfully  have  said  of  some  chorus  girl  of  the 
operetta  stage,  and  he  would  then  have  reported  a  case  of 
concerted  action,  where  two  actions,  talking  (with  the 
speech  organs)  and  dancing  (with  the  feet)  would  have 
been  equally  pronounced  and  occurring  in  necessary  agree- 
ment. 

The  pronunciations  and  the  writing  actions  in  the  use  of 
a  language  are  both  good  examples  of  concerted  action. 
Pronouncing  "ferret"  is  a  concert  of  muscular  activities. 
Pronouncing  "fret"  is  another  one.  The  comparison  of  the 
two  cases  illustrates  the  importance  of  the  relative  force  of 
each  constituent  action.  In  other  cases  of  pronunciation  the 
succession  of  the  elements  is  of  main  importance. 

In  writing  it  often  happens  that  the  succession  of  the 
elements  is  incorrect.  A  certain  one  of  two  muscle  sets, 
both  of  which  are  ready  for  action,  precedes  the  other  one 
instead  of  being  preceded  by  the  other  one.  The  author 
once  knew  a  student  who  usually  "lasped"  into  writing 
Odgen  the  i?ame  of  his  teacher  which  really  was  Ogden. 
The  cause  of  it  is  obvious.  In  the  English  language  the 
writing  actions  of  d  and  g  in  this  succession  are  a  much 
more  common  form  of  concert  than  g  succeeded  by  d. 
Think  of  badge,  edge,  ridge,  lodge,  cudgel. 

These  examples  will  suffice  to  keep  us  aware  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  never  useful  to  think  of  concertedness  in  any  but 
a  relative  sense.  A  concerted  action  may,  according  as  it 
is  compared,  be  local.  In  that  case  we  shall  regard  it  theo- 
retically, that  is,  in  artificial  and  intentional  simplification, 
as  a  mere  reflex  action  and  represent  it  by  a  single  reflex 
arch.  In  so  far  as  we  consider  its  real  complexity,  it  need 
not   consist   of    strictly    simultaneous    (but    only    of    about 


56  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHEE-ONE. 

simultaneous)  muscular  contractions.  The  agreement  of 
the  several  components  may  be  of  one  kind  or  of  another, 
of  many  kinds  still  to  be  illustrated  by  further  examples. 
All  that  the  term  concertedness  implies  is  a  definite  manner 
of  co-operation  of  a  definite  number  of  localities  of  an 
animal's  body  leading  to  a  definite  real  or  apparent  end. 
And  the  co-operation  must  take  place  within  a  period  of 
time  so  small  that  one  can  speak  of  it  as  "the  present"  time. 
For  example,  "at  the  present  time  Robinson  Crusoe  is 
climbing  a  tree."   Or,  "at  the  present  time  he  is  walking." 

The  simpler  the  manner  of  co-operation  of  different 
localities,  the  easier  it  is  to  make  it  clear  and  understandable 
as  the  result  of  definite  causes,  of  definite  biological  func- 
tions. In  low  animals  the  manner  of  co-operation  of  several 
local  contractions  is  likely  to  be  simpler  than  in  high 
animals. 

It  is  therefore  advisable  to  study  and  understand  clearly 
a  case  of  concerted  action  in  a  very  low  animal.  In  the  jelly- 
fishes  the  ordinary  locomotion  is  a  good  example  of  concer- 
ted action.    Let  us  study  it  in  detail. 


TWO    CROSS-SECTIONS    OF    A    JELLY- 
FISH. 


A  jelly-fish  has  a  bell-shaped  body.  The  figure  shows 
it  in  cross-section.  The  so-called  vegetative  organs  and  the 
feet  or  tentacles  have  been  omitted  because  they  do  not  in- 
terest us  in  this  connection.  On  contraction  of  the  bell,  in 
the  manner  indicated  by  the  dotted  line,  the  water — the 
medium  in  which  the  jelly-fish  lives — is  pressed  out  of  the 


CONCERTED    ACTION  57 

concave  side,  and  the  animal,  naturally,  moves  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  convex  side.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  move- 
ment of  a  jelly-fish  in  the  water  is  rarely  seen  to  be  as 
simple  as  our  statement  suggests.  The  usual  position  of 
the  animal  is  with  the  cavity  downwards,  tho  not  neces- 
sarily with  the  axis  exactly  in  the  vertical  position.  And 
its  usual  locomotion  is  oblique  rather  than  in  the  direction 
of  the  axis.  But,  as  we  have  previously  justified  it  in  gene- 
ral, so  we  here  as  elsewhere  simplify  the  actual  case  and 
regard  it  as  a  motion  along  the  axis  in  the  direction  of  the 
convex  side. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  a  straight-way  locomotion  could 
then  result  only  under  certain  conditions.  For  example,  it 
would  be  impossible  if  the  tissues  on  one-half  of  the  rim  of 
the  bell  contracted  while  those  on  the  other  half  relaxed, 
expanded,  or  even  only  lagged  behind  a  little  in  contracting. 
This  lagging  behind,  however,  could  easily  be  brought  about 
by  the  uncontrolled  play  of  certain  conditions, — which  we 
now  have  to  study. 

To  understand  these  conditions,  let  us  first  imagine  the 
analogous  case  of  eight  leaky  places  on  a  water  pipe.  Sup- 
pose the  frequency  of  the  dropping  at  each  place  to  be  about 
the  same,  say,  one  drop  a  second.  But  even  then  we  could 
not  expect  all  the  eight  drops  to  fall  simultaneously :  as  we 
say  in  physics,  we  could  not  expect  that  there  be  no  phase 
difference  among  the  eight  drops.  The  eight  drops  would 
probably  fall  from  the  eight  leaks  in  a  quite  irregular  suc- 
cession.    Let  us  make  the  application  of  this  analogy. 

The  rhythmical  contraction  all  around  the  rim  of  the 
bell  would  be  caused  by  the  chemical  constitution  of  the 
jeUy-fish  at  the  time  in  question,  when  perhaps  no  food  has 
been  taken  for  some  time  and  locomotion  thus  has  become 
necessary.    Now,  lack  of  food  is  a  very  slowly  developing, 


58  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

slowly  acting  stimulus.  The  excitation  resulting  from  it 
has  a  chance  to  distribute  itself  continuously  all  over  the 
body, — to  distribute  itself  more  quickly  than  it  develops. 
It  is  therefore  quite  impossible  that  it  differ  appreciably  in 
various  parts  of  the  body  at  the  same  time.  The  excitation 
being  the  same  in  all  the  divisions  of  the  rim  of  the  bell, 
no  division  would  on  account  of  stimulus  and  excitation 
have  a  frequency  of  periodic  contraction  differing  from  that 
of  any  other  division.  Of  course  it  is  here  presupposed  that, 
the  greater  the  excitation,  the  greater  the  frequency  of  the 
resulting  contraction. 

In  spite  of  the  uniformity  of  the  excitation  (the  chemical 
condition)  thruout  the  body,  however,  there  might  be  a 
slight  difference  of  the  frequency  of  the  bending  inwards 
of  the  divisions  of  the  rim,  if  the  tissues  happen  to  be  un- 
equally flexible.  In  consequence  of  a  wound  there  might 
remain  a  scar,  and  the  tissues  of  this  region  might  therefore, 
or  simply  by  accidents  of  growth  (what  animal  could  be 
absolutely  perfect  in  symmetry!)  be  a  little  more  or  a  little 
less  tough  than  elsewhere.  A  difference  of  frequency 
would  result. 

What  would  be  the  result  of  a  difference  of  frequency 
for  the  locomotion  of  the  animal?  If  of  two  paddle  wheels 
on  the  two  sides  of  a  steamer  one  would  go  faster,  strike 
the  water  nore  frequently,  what  would  be  the  result?  The 
steamer  would  continuously  turn  to  one  side,  gradually  de- 
scribe a  circle.  That  would  help  little  to  remedy  the  evil 
of  lack  of  food, — in  the  analogous  case  of  a  jelly-fish. 

Now  suppose  the  frequency  of  contraction,  fortuitously, 
to  be  the  same  everywhere.  That  would  by  no  means  in- 
sure that  the  contractions  occur  in  all  the  divisions  of  the 
rim  of  the  bell  simultaneously.  There  would  be  as  little 
probability  for  that  as  for  the  falling,  simultaneously,  of 


CONCEETED    ACTION  59 

those  eight  drops  at  eight  leaky  places  of  a  pipe.  And  what 
would  be  the  result  for  the  locomotion  of  the  animal?  The 
same  as  if  several  boatsmen  rowing  a  boat  in  a  race  would 
not  drop  their  oars  in  the  water  simultaneously,  but  in 
irregular  succession.  The  boat  would  not  advance  in  a 
straight  line  but  wabble,  so  to  speak,  irregularly  and  jerkily 
from  either  side  to  the  other.  That  would  be  a  considerable 
waste  of  effort. 

Could  the  simultaneity  be  insured?  In  the  boat  race  it 
is  insured  by  the  captain  of  the  team,  who,  if  necessary, 
counts  aloud.  His  words  are  not  the  stimulus  which  makes 
the  oarsmen  work.  (We  remember  the  conductor  of  the 
orchestra!)  His  words  are  the  stimulus  which  makes  them 
correct  the  imperfections  of  the  concert  of  their  actions. 
The  boat  no  longer  proceeds  in  an  irregular  serpentine,  but 
in  a  straight  line.     It  has  a  chance  to  win  the  race. 

In  the  jelly-fish,  as  soon  as  one  of  the  divisions  of  the 
rim  of  the  bell  "spontaneously"  (that  is,  in  response  to  the 
stimulus  "lack  of  food")  begins  to  contract,  this  contrac- 
tion itself  assumes  the  role  of  a  stimulus.  From  it  results 
a  new  excitation, — in  the  very  tissues  contracting,  an  ad- 
dition to  the  excitation  previously  existing  in  them,  which 
has  caused  their  contraction.  But  what  becomes  of  this  new 
excitation  ? 

All  tissues  are,  as  we  know  already,  to  some  degree  sen- 
sitive, contractile  and  conductive.  The  new  excitation  is 
therefore  conducted  to  all  the  other  divisions  of  the  bell, 
even  tho  there  be  no  differentiated  conductive  tissue.  Those 
other  divisions  are  almost  ready  to  contract,  in  response  to 
the  stimulus  "lack  of  food."  They  would  contract  in  any 
case,  one  soon,  another  one  just  a  moment  later,  and  so 
forth.  The  additional  excitation  reaching  them  "speeds 
them  up,"  causes  them  to  contract  now,  all  of  them  virtually 


60  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

at  the  same  moment.  One  must  remember  in  this  connec- 
tion that  the  velocity  of  propagation  ("velocity,"  not  rato, 
not  quantity  of  flow)  of  any  small  unit  of  excitation  is 
quite  considerable ;  probably  not  much  less  than  100  feet 
per  second.  And  from  one  side  of  a  jelly-fish  to  the  op- 
posite is  a  distance  of  only  a  few  inches.    So  all  the  divis- 


NERVOUS     SYSTEM     OF     A 
JELLY-FISH      (ACALEPHA). 

ions  would  contract  virtually  at  the  same  moment.  In 
physical  terminology, — that  is,  in  the  mathematical  termino- 
logy of  the  physicist, — one  would  say  that  the  phase  dif- 
ference of  the  periodic  contractions  of  the  various  divisions 
was  zero.  What  now  about  any  possible  differences  of 
their  periods, — or  (since  this  means  really  exactly  the  same) 
of  their  frequencies? 

We  have  made  it  clear  previjusly  that  a  difference  of 
frequency  is  much  less  likely  than  a  difference  in  phase. 
The  stimulus  "lack  of  food"  is  a  slowly  developing  stimulus, 
the  excitation  is  therefore  evenly  distributed ;  and  consider- 
able differences  in  the  toughness  of  the  tissues  are  probably 
rare.  If  any  difference  in  frequency  is  to  be  expected,  we 
would  expect  only  a  slight  one.  And  frequencies  differing 
slightly  would  readily  be  equalized  by  the  same  factor  which 
does  away  with  the  phase  differences.  If  those  divisions 
of  the  rim  of  the  bell   which  lag  behind,  are  forced  to  con- 


CONCEETED    ACTION.  61 

tract  at  the  moment  when  the  first  contracts,  and  thus  at 
the  beginning  of  the  next  period  again  all  contract  at  the 
same  moment,  and  again  and  again,  there  can  obviously  be 
no  frequency  difference. 

In  the  locomotion  of  a  jelly-fish  the  concertedness  of  the 
actions  of  the  various  divisions  of  the  animal  consists  in 
the  fulfilment  of  two  conditions :  in  equality  of  the  frequency 
of  the  various  local  contractions  and  in  the  phase  difference 
of  their  periods  being  zero.  And  this  concertedness — we 
understand  now —  is  brought  about  simply  by  the  fact  that 
a  contraction  of  tissue,  altho  resulting,  of  course,  from  a 
stimulus,  can  itself  be  a  stimulus.  This  latter  stimulus  is 
analogous  to  the  class  of  stimuli  coming  from  the  leader, 
in  the  example  of  the  orchestra.  Naturally,  there  is  no 
special  leader  in  the  body  of  a  jelly-fish.  Any  part  may 
accidentally  assume  this  role.  The  stimulus  "lack  of  food" 
is  analogous  to  the  stimulus  "lack  of  food"  in  the  other 
case. 

We  shall  later  see  that  in  the  highest  animals,  too,  con- 
traction of  contractile  tissue  may  be  itself  a  stimulus.  In- 
deed, the  muscles,  for  that  reason,  must  be  regarded,  not 
only  as  motor  organs  responding  to  sense  organs,  but  them- 
selves as  sense  organs  to  which  other  muscles  may  respond. 
This  interesting  fact,  altho  it  suggests  itself,  cannot  be  dis- 
cussed further  at  this  moment,  since  that  would  interrupt 
our  present  line  of  thought.  But  this  may  still  be  said  in 
this  connection,  that  one  must  not  think  it  strange  that  the 
muscles  should  have  two  different  functions.  In  fact  they 
have  still  other  functions.  They  are  also  the  "stoves"  which 
heat  the  body.  And  they  are  organs  of  secretion  which,  as 
such,  like  glands  are  of  much  importance.  Biologically 
there  is  nothing  strange  in  an  organ  having  a  multiplicity 
of  even  diverse  functions. 


62  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

Equality  of  frequency  and  phase  is  one  example.  Serial 
occurrence  is  another  example  of  concertedness.  We  find 
serial  occurrence  of  actions  in  the  highest  as  well  as  in  the 
lower  animals.  All  writing  and  speaking  can  furnish  exam- 
ples.   Or  an  experience  of  the  following  kind. 

Think  of  an  insect  alighting  on  your  nose.  Many  are  the 
responses  which  may  occur.  But  which  of  them  in  all 
probability  will  be  the  first?  Most  probably  you  twitch  or 
wriggle  your  nose ;  the  insect  is  disturbed  and  leaves.  No 
further  action  then  follows, — there  being  no  further  stimu- 
lus. But  the  insect  may  have  such  a  good  hold  on  your  nose 
that  such  slight  movements  will  not  cause  it  to  leave.  A 
second  reaction  occurs.  Yovi  shake  your  head.  But  if  this 
does  not  remove  the  insect,  and  if  the  stimulus,  therefore, 
persists,  you  make  a  hand  movement.  With  which  hand? 
If  you  are  what  most  people  are,  right-sided  (this  is  a  better 
designation  than  right-handed),  you  move  the  right  hand. 
This  will  surely  brush  the  insect  off,  if  your  hand  can  reach 
the  nose.  But  imagine  you  are  a  captive  among  Indians 
and  tied  to  a  tree.  The  third  reaction,  that  of  the  muscles 
controlling  your  right  hand,  therefore  remains  as  ineffective 
as  those  preceding.  Your  fourth  reaction  will  then  be  that 
of  your  left  hand.  It  is  ineffective  like  the  third.  Your 
fifth  reaction  is  that  of  the  right  foot.  Why  should  you 
not  try  to  take  a  reed  or  a  similar  thing  between  your  toes 
in  order  to  brush  the  animal  off?  People  who  have  no 
hands  may  be  seen  to  take  even  a  writing  pen  or  knitting 
needles  between  their  toes!  If  the  right  foot  does  not  suc- 
ceed, the  sixth  reaction  may  be  that  of  your  left  foot.  And 
after  that  a  general  twitching  of  all  the  muscles  of  the  body 
may  follow,  general  convulsions.  You  would  not,  with  a 
mere  sigh,  permit  the  insect  to  destroy  your  nose  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  in  the  classical  paintings  Prometheus  reacts  to 
the  vulture  gnawing  his  liver. 


CONCEETED    ACTION.  6 


c» 


The  reactions  in  a  case  like  our  example  are  not  likely 
to  occur  in  an  irregular  series,  but  in  a  definite  one.  And 
in  a  series,  not  simultaneously  and  immediately. 

Similar  to  serial  reactions  are  circular  reactions.  The 
simplest  circular  reaction,  consisting  of  two  members  only, 
is  alternation.  With  alternate  or  reciprocal  actions  we  are 
very  familiar  in  engines.  The  piston  of  a  steam  engine, 
going  one  way,  operates  a  lever  which  initiates  its  going  the 
other  way ;  this  makes  it  go  again  the  former  way,  and  so 
forth.  The  heart  of  animals  consists  essentially  of  two 
chambers  thru  which,  because  of  self-closing  valves,  the 
blood  can  pass  only  in  one  direction.  The  contraction  of 
one  chamber  acts  on  the  other  chamber  causing  it  to  start 
contracting.  The  contraction  of  the  other  acts  on  the  one, 
and  so  forth. 

At  a  first  gla-nce  all  that  seems  necessary  biologically  in 
order  to  bring  this  about  is  the  fact  already  mentioned,  that 
a  contraction  becomes  itself  a  stimulus,  that  is,  the  cause  of 
an  excitation.  This  excitation  is  conducted  to  the  other 
muscle.  The  other  muscle  then  contracts  and,  as  a  stimulus, 
causes  in  itself  a  new  excitation,  which  is  conducted  to  the 
former  muscle,  and  so  forth.  If  we,  accepting  the  responsi- 
bilities of  the  Creator,  desire  to  improve  the  conduction,  we 
do  that  by  introducing  differentiated  conductive  tissue.  We 
take  two  reflex  paths,  put  the  sensory  end  of  one  of  these 
"chains"  of  neurons  in  one  muscle  and  its  motor  end  in  the 
other  muscle.  In  the  latter  muscle  we  place  also  the  sensory 
end  of  the  other  neuron  chain ;  and  the  motor  end  of  this 
we  locate  in  the  former  muscle.  Two  reflexes  joined  in 
this  manner  seem  to  be  all  that  is  necessary  for  this  form 
of  concert.  If  there  are  three  members  in  the  circle  of 
action  instead  of  two,  three  reflexes  are  joined  end  to  end. 
And  so  forth  with  higher  numbers. 


64  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEK-OXE. 

In  a  true  series, — not  occurring  in  a  "circle"  like  pump 
actions,  but  running  along  a  "line,"  from  one  end  of  the 
series  to  the  other  without  repetition  of  the  series, — nothing 
more  seems  to  be  required,  either,  than  a  number  of  reflex 
paths  joined  and  one  initial  stimulus  from  outside  the  muscle 
group.  Draw  some  reflex  arches  side  by  side  as  in  a  pre- 
vious figure,  but  join  the  sensory  point  of  the  arch  on  the 
right  to  the  motor  point  of  the  arch  on  the  left.  Continue 
adding  in  this  manner  as  many  reflex  arches  as  you  wish. 
This  looks  like  a  simple  solution  of  the  architectural  prob- 
lem confronting  the  Creator  in  any  case  of  serial  or  of 
circular  action. — But  it  is  not. 

The  solution  just  suggested  may  solve  the  problem  in 
many  of  the  simpler  cases.  But  it  is  far  from  being  a 
solution  general!)  possible  in  biology.  Two  conflicting  con- 
ditions seem  to  make  life  impossible.  The  problem  would 
be  hopeless  if  a  complete  denial  of  the  demand  of  either  the 
one  or  the  other  were  insisted  on. 

But  what  are  these  two  conflicting  conditions? 

One  is  the  need,  in  the  life  of  animals,  of  concerted  action 
of  various  kinds.  The  other  condition  is  the  need  of  local 
responsiveness  in  the  sense  of  one  action  being  overwhelm- 
ingly strong  in  comparison  with  the  responses  occurring  at 
the  time  in  other  localities  of  the  body. 

It  would  be  terrible  if  a  jelly-fish,  for  example,  could 
move  only  in  a  straight  line  without  ever  changing  its  direc- 
tion,— if  a  contraction  of  one  division  of  the  rim  of  the  bell 
would  invariably  force  all  the  other  divisions  to  contract 
at  the  same  moment.  It  would  be  terrible  if  the  ability  of 
a  boy  to  climb  a  pole  straddling  forever  precluded  the  pos- 
sibility of  moving  his  hands  alone,  that  is,  without  alternately 
moving  now  hands,  now  feet,  again  hands,  again  feet,  and 
so  on, — if  he  were  thus  condemned  to  be  all  his  life  a  kind 


CONCERTED    ACTION".  65 

of  jumping  jack,  if  he  could  not  eat  without  exercising  at 
the  same  time  "half  bend  of  the  knees."  It  would  be  terrible 
if  chewing,  swallowing,  and  pushing  things  down  the  esoph- 
agus, which  often  occur  in  this  order  in  a  series,  could  never 
occur  otherwise, — if  chewing  could  never  be  followed  by 
spitting,  and  swallowing  never  by  vomiting. 

And  yet  these  terrible  consequences  seem  to  be  inevitable 
if  concerted  action  is  always  and  only  the  result  of  perfec- 
ting the  conductivity  of  the  tissues  concerned,  or,  in  the 
higher  animals,  of  joining  reflexes  together.  How  can  the 
reflexes,  by  functioning  separately,  give  the  animal  local 
responsiveness,  if  the  very  cause  of  their  existence,  the 
separateness  and  localness  of  the  response,  has  been  denied 
by  joining  them  in  groups  or  series? 

On  the  other  hand, — this  is  the  dilemma — how  can  con- 
certedness  be  the  result  of  anything  else  but  of  the  con- 
ductivity from  acting  member  to  acting  member  of  the  inter- 
posed tissues,  or  of  the  junction  of  several  reflexes?  The 
reflexes  must  be  joined.  The  problem  is  obviously,  not 
merely  a  problem  of  joining  or  not  joining,  but  rather  of 
joining  in  the  proper  or  in  an  improper  manner.  It  is  a 
problem,  seemingly,  of  architectural  design  within  the  con- 
ductive tissue,  within  the  nervous  system.  In  order  to 
force  yourself  to  understand  the  problem  better,  imagine 
yourself  to  have  received  from  the  Creator  an  appointment 
of  serving  as  his  assistant,  to  have  received  the  task  of 
constructing  for  the  benefit  of  a  given  animal  a  nervous 
system  which  will  fulfill  its  needs.  It  is  the  same  as  in 
understanding  any  engine,  a  sewing  machine,  a  clock.  Put 
its  pieces  together  so  that  it  works,  and  you  have  made  its 
function  perfectly  clear  to  you. 

If  you  cannot  actually,  materially,  construct  the  machine, 
you   can   construct   it   by   making   a   drawing,   putting   the 


66  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

elements  together  on  paper.  Design  a  nervous  system  by 
joining  together  reflex  arches,  as  if  you  were  the  Creator's 
architectural  deputy.  That  will  make  you  understand  the 
problem  and  at  least  some  of  the  possibilities  of  its  solu- 
tion. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  you  have  any  right, 
taking  the  interest  of  science  at  heart,  to  indulge  in  any 
fanciful  designs  of  a  nervous  system  unrelated  either  to  the 
facts  of  the  animal's  behavior  or  to  the  neurological  knowl- 
edge of  the  time.  You  must,  indeed,  limit  yourself  strictly 
to  the  results  of  anatomy,  histology,  physiology,  organic 
chemistry,  etc.  But  where  the  knowledge  of  the  facts  by 
contemporaneous  science  is  incomplete,  you  not  only  can 
but  must  All  the  gaps  by  hypotheses. 

A  scientific  hypothesis  has  a  double  value.  First,  it  satis- 
fies an  intellectual  person's  practical  need  of  understanding 
what  he  experiences.  The  hypothesis  is  not  ''the  known," 
but  it  is  "an  analogy  of  the  known."  Human  as  we  are,  if 
we  do  not  satisfy  our  desire  to  understand  things  at  least 
by  constructing  an  hypothesis,  we  fall  easily  into  the  habit 
of  completing  deficiencies  of  knowledge  by  imagining  mys- 
teries as  causes.  And  secondly,  a  good  hypothesis  has  the 
immense  value  of  spurring  us  on  and  showing  us  the  way  in 
research,  of  pointing  to  a  fruitful  direction  in  which  to  look 
for  facts  whose  knowledge  may  in  the  future  be  substituted 
for  the  analogies  of  which  an  hypothesis  is  constructed. 

What,  then,  will  be  the  hypotheses  of  nervous  architec- 
ture and  nervous  function  by  means  of  which  you  fulfill  the 
imaginary  task  given  you  by  the  Creator? 


CHAPTER  IV 

Concerted  Action  presents  a  Problem  to  the  Archi- 
tect OF  THE  Nervous  System, 

In  modern  discussions  of  the  function  of  the  nervous 
system  a  phrase  is  often  found  which  we  have  thus  far 
avoided.  One  hears  much  about  "the  integrative  action  of 
the  nervous  system."  This  phrase  means  exactly  the  same 
as  what  is  expressed  by  saying:  "Concerted  action  depends 
on  the  architectural  and  functional  properties  of  the  nervous 
system."  It  is  likely  to  be  misunderstood  by  an  inexperi- 
enced student  as  meaning  that  the  nervous  system's  only 
function  is  that  of  integrating,  "making  a  whole,"  insuring 
the  concertedness  of  the  animal's  actions.  But  the  previous 
chapters  have  shown  us  the  very  opposite  of  integration. 
The  separateness,  the  localness  of  a  response  to  a  stimulus 
is  also  a  purpose  of  the  existence  of  the  nervous  system. 
And  the  latter  purpose  is  no  less  exacting  in  its  demands 
than  that  of  unifying  the  animal. 

What  does  "concerted  action"  ask  of  the  architect  of  its 
house,  so  to  speak?  What  is  the  most  general  demand 
made  on  the  nervous  system  by  concerted  action?  Is  this 
not  readily  agreed  on  by  all  the  parties  to  the  contract,  that 
some  nervous  current,  no  matter  whence  it  comes,  must  be 
able  to  go  to  all  those  points  where  the  contractile  tissues  are 
located  which  are  to  act  in  concert?  Must  not  the  leader  of 
the  orchestra  be  able  to  reach  all,  be  visible  and  audible  to 
all  the  musicians? 

(67) 


68  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

No  one  believes  that  this  is  sufficient,  and  that,  this  de- 
mand granted,  all  problems  have  disappeared.  But,  thinking 
of  the  problem  of  concertedness  in  the  simplest  possible 
way,  this  is  certainly  the  most  fundamental  necessity.  Some 
current  must  go  to  all  those  points. 

In  the  case  of  the  jelly-fish — as  to  coming —  we  saw  that 
this  current  came  from  one  of  the  contracting  divisions  of 
the  rim,  caused  by  the  contraction  itself ;  and— as  to  going — 
that  it  went  everywhere  because  of  the  conductivity  of  all 
the  tissues. 

The  question  remains  if  this  current  would  not  be  too 
weak  if  it  had  to  pass  wholly  thru  undifferentiated  tissue. 
Now,  it  need  be  only  weak  because,  as  we  remember,  it  has 
to  hasten  only,  not  to  cause,  the  contraction  of  the  several 
divisions.  Nevertheless,  it  might  be  too  weak.  Then  the 
Creator  would  have  to  come  to  the  animal's  aid  as  the 
architect  and  builder,  would  have  to  furnish  it  with  dif- 
ferentiated conductive  tissue.  Turning  back  to  our  figure 
of  the  jelly-fish  as  seen  from  above,  we  notice  there  ra- 
diating nerve  fibers  serving  this  purpose. 

If  the  Creator  has  appointed  you  to  place  these  fibers  in 
the  animal  so  that  they  serve  this  purpose  best,  you  will 
probably  connect  them  all  in  one  point.  You  will  make 
them  all  radiate  from  one  point.  Then  good  conductivity 
from  any  division  of  the  rim  to  any  other  division  is  in- 
sured. 

Nevertheless  the  animal,  if  It  can  speak  to  you,  its  "bene- 
factor," and  if  it  is  wise,  will  protest  against  this  gift.  Fre- 
quently external  stimuli  act  upon  the  body  and  require,  not 
a  straightforward  locomotion,  but  a  change  of  direction  as 
response.  For  example,  the  jelly-fish,  while  swimming, 
strikes  a  rock  with  one  side  of  the  bell.  The  jelly-fish  then 
must  change  its  direction.     That  division  which  touched 


NERVOUS  AECHITECTURE.  69 

the  rock  must  contract  more  strongly  than  any  other,  especi- 
ally than  the  diametrically  opposite  division,  in  order  to 
bring  about  the  change  of  direction.  Without  conduction, 
the  predominance  of  the  action  of  the  one  division  touched 
would  be  certain.  But  with  perfect  conduction  to  all  other 
divisions  it  would  be  equally  certain  that  no  such  predomi- 
nance of  a  local  reaction,  no  local  responsiveness  to  an  ex- 
ternal stimulus,  would  be  possible. 

We  only  repeat  here.  We  have  already  referred  to  this 
fact,  the  impossibility  of  such  a  conductive  system,  in  the 
second  chapter,  while  discussing  the  life  of  our  imaginary 
snail. 

Here  is,  then,  the  necessity  for  a  compromise.  And  this 
compromise  is  effected  in  the  jelly-fish  by  having  the  eight 
radial  fibers  not  join  in  the  center,  but  stop  short  before 
reaching  each  other.  Thus  undifferentiated  tissues,  tissues 
of  high  resistance,  are  interposed  to  weaken  the  excitation 
coming  from  one  of  the  divisions  to  such  an  extent  that 
only  one  division  can  react  strongly  to  the  external  stimulus. 
All  others  react  only  weakly. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  compromising,  which  is  the 
very  foundation  of  all  social  life  of  animals,  of  all  social 
institutions  of  mankind,  is  found  to  be  an  essential  function 
in  the  individual  life  of  any  one  of  the  very  lowest  animals 
which  possess  a  nervous  system.  The  unity  of  all  organized 
nature,  which  is  the  fundamental  concept  of  modern  biology, 
is  exemplified  by  this  role  played  in  any  life,  low  or  high, 
by  compromises.  Two  conflicting  conditions  seem  to  make 
life  impossible.  But  the  problem  would  be  hopeless  only 
if  a  complete  denial  of  the  demands  of  either  the  one  or  the 
other  were  insisted  on.  On  the  one  hand,  concerted  action 
calls  for  the  most  perfect  conduction  from  any  division  of 
the  rim  of  the  bell  to  all  the  others.     On  the  other  hand, 


70  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

local  responsiveness  calls  for  the  interposition  of  high  re- 
sistances between  the  diametrically  opposite  divisions  of 
the  rim.  The  compromise  must  then  consist  in  this,  that 
all  the  divisions  are  connected  by  conductors,  but  in  such 
a  way  that  conduction  from  one  point  of  the  rim  to  opposite 
points  is  by  the  properties  of  the  conducting  medium  itself 
more  resisted  than  conduction  to  neighboring  points. 

Nature  has,  as  we  saw,  solved  the  problem  by  stopping 
the  differentiated  radiating  conductors  as  far  short  of  the 
center  as  the  condition  of  local  responsiveness  requires, 
leaving  in  the  center  enough  undifferentiated  tissue  inter- 
posed to  meet  this  requirement.  Another  way  of  fulfilling 
the  condition  of  varying  resistance  is  by  resorting  to  the 
length  of  the  differentiated  conductors  without  interposing 
any  undifferentiated  tissue.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  length  of  a  nervous  conductor  determines  its  resistance 
as  the  length  of  telegraph  and  telephone  wires  determines 
their  resistances.  The  longer  the  conducting  string,  the 
greater  its  resistance. 

Nature  has  solved  the  problem  in  this  way  in  another 
kind  of  jelly-fish,  called  hydromedusa.    Here  all  the  points 


NERVOUS  SYSTEM  OF  A 
JELLY-FISH        (HYDRO- 
MEDUSA). 


of  the  rim  are  connected  by  differentiated  conductors  form- 
ing a  ring,  as  shown  in  our  figure  illustrating  the  nervous 
system  of  this  species.    If  any  division  of  the  rim  contracts, 


NEEVOUS  ARCHITECTURE.  71 

the  excitation  is  by  this  ring  conducted  to  all  other  divisions. 
But  the  excitation  reaching  opposite  parts  of  the  rim  is 
much  weaker  than  that  Vvhich  reaches  neighboring  ones,  in 
accordance  with  the  varying  length  of  the  conductor.  This 
difference  in  the  intensity  of  the  conducted  excitation  does 
no  harm  in  the  case  of  ordinary,  straightforward  locomotion. 
The  rhythmical  contraction  is  in  this  activity  the  result  of 
the  chemical  constitution  of  the  body  which,  perhaps,  has 
been  the  result  of  lacking  food  for  some  time.  This  chemi- 
cal state  differs  but  slightly  in  the  various  parts  of  the  body. 
The  different  parts  of  the  rim,  therefore,  would  contract 
and  expand  in  almost  the  same  periodicity  anyway.  A  very 
slight  excitation  conducted  from  elsewhere  is  then  sufficient 
to  hurry  up  any  part  which  without  this  excitation  would 
lag  behind.    Thus  there  is  concerted  action. 

But  when  a  stimulus  acts  from  without  on  any  point  of 
the  rim,  only  those  parts  are  caused  to  respond  strongly 
which  are  in  that  neighborhood.  The  other  parts  of  the 
rim,  receiving  the  effect  of  the  stimulus  as  a  weaker  and 
weaker  excitation  the  longer  the  piece  of  the  rim  over  which 
the  excitation  has  to  travel,  are  considerably  affected  only 
if  yet  rather  near  the  point  of  stimulation.  The  divisions 
opposite  this  point  remain  practically  unaffected  by  the  stim- 
ulus.   There  is  local  responsiveness. 

The  problem  of  combining  undisturbed  local  responsive- 
ness with  universal  connection  of  all  the  parts  of  an 
animal's  body  by  conductors  of  low  resistance  can  therefore 
be  solved  architecturally  in  more  than  one  way.  Our  figures 
of  the  two  species  of  jelly-fishes  represent  two  solutions  of 
the  problem,  both  actually  found  in  nature.  But  the  second 
solution  seems  the  more  perfect  one,  because  the  universal 
communication  thru  conductors  is  in  this  case  more  perfect , 
while  local  responsiveness  is  as  satisfactorily  retained  as  in 


72  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

the  other  case.  This  more  perfect  solution  of  the  problem 
resorts  to  the  differences  of  the  resistances  of  the  conduc- 
ting paths  as  dependent  on  their  varying  length.  We  shall 
have  to  keep  this  in  mind. 

The  example  of  the  jelly-fish  has  taught  us  that  there 
must  be  a  gradation  of  resistances.  Imagine  a  sensory 
point  called  A  and  a  motor  point  called  B.  If  it  is  desirable 
for  an  animal's  well-being  that  an  excitation  occurring  at 
A  be  followed  most  readily  by  a  contraction  at  the  point  B, 
the  points  A  and  B  must  be  connected  by  a  conductor  of 
small  resistance.  Let  us  call  those  sensory  and  motor 
points  which  are  thus  connected  corresponding  points  when- 
ever we  need  a  brief  term  by  which  we  may  refer  to  them. 

If,  as  in  the  case  of  a  jelly-fish  or  a  snail,  these  cor- 
responding points  are  virtually  identical,  only  different 
names  for  the  same  place  perhaps,  the  conduction  is  a  self- 
evident  fact  even  without  any  special  conductors.  If,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  moth,  A  is  an  eye  and  B  the  muscle  of  a 
wing,  at  a  distance  from  each  other,  the  conduction  be- 
tween the  corresponding  points  must  be  mediated  by  a 
nervous  string,  or  a  chain  of  nervous  strings,  of  the  shortest 
length  possible  under  the  anatomical  conditions.  But  all — 
or  at  least  some — of  the  other,  non-corresponding,  contrac- 
tile points  of  the  body  must  also  be  in  some  way  connected 
with  the  sensitive  region  A.  Otherwise  no  concerted  action 
might  be  possible.  The  moth,  for  example,  would  hardly 
be  able  to  alight  on  a  twig  or  leaf  which  happens  to  impress 
itself  on  the  animal's  eye  and  towards  which  the  moth  must 
act,  not  only  with  its  wings,  but  also  with  its  legs,  in  order 
to  alight.  These  further  connections  with  the  point  A, 
however,  in  order  to  leave  the  connection  A-B  in  its  proper 
functional  condition,  must  have  a  higher  resistance, — as  we 
have  seen,  must  be  longer  than  A-B. 


NERVOUS  ARCHITECTURE. 


73 


The  shortest  possible  connections  between  corresponding 
points  are  exactly  what  we  have  called  in  a  previous  chapter 
reflex  arches.  We  must  now  find  a  way  of  representing 
graphically  those  nervous  conductors  which  lead  from  each 
sensory  point  to  those  motor  points  which  are  not  corre- 
sponding. 

These  conductors  which  are  not  reflex  paths  must  be,  as 
we  have  found,  longer  than  the  conductors  directly  con- 
necting corresponding  points.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  no  good 
purpose  could  be  served  by  representing  the  connections 
between  non-corresponding  points  as  they  are  represented 
in  our  figure  showing  two  nested  reflex  arches.  The  figure 
is  intended  to  demonstrate  merely  how  neurological  func- 
tions ougth  not  to  be — but  how  they  nevertheless  some- 
times are — described. 


Si 


Mi 


St    Sa 


Ma    Mb 


A  WRONG  DESIGN  OF  CON- 
NECTIONS. 


Let  US  agree  that  any  straight  line,  no  matter  what  its 
length,  shall  represent  one  neuron  of  standard  length  and 
of  a  unit  of  resistance.  Such  lines  as  S^M^,  which  has  a 
crook  between  its  straight  ends,  are  also  regarded  simply 
as  straight  lines,  because  the  crook  signifies  nothing  but 
insulation  from  the  line  crossed  on  the  paper.  All  this  is 
customary  in  such  drawings.  We  then  measure  the  re- 
sistance of  a  path  in  the  drawing  by  counting  the  number 
of  lines  of  which  the  path  is  composed.    This  number  gives 


74  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

the  resistance  of  the  path  in  units.  The  conductivity  is  in- 
versely proportional  to  the  resistance  and  can  be  measured 
by  the  reciprocal  value  of  the  resistance.  For  example,  if 
a  certain  resistance  is  4,  the  conductivity  is  | ;  and  if  the 
resistance  is    f ,  the  conductivity  is  ^. 

Now  imagine  the  connections  between  non-corresponding 
points  made  by  nature  as  in  our  drawing.  Count  the  units 
of  resistance.  The  conductor  S^^S^M^Mg  connecting  the 
non-corresponding  points  Sj,  and  M^  has  not  a  greater 
resistance  than  the  conductor  S^S^M^M^,  since  both  are 
made  up  of  three  standard  lengths,  altho  our  requirement 
is  that  it  shall  have  a  greater  resistance,  a  lesser  conduc- 
tivity. We  must  look  for  a  different  design  in  order  to 
represent  the  actual  conditions  of  conductive  connection 
properly  in  a  graph. 

Neurology,  that  is,  the  anatomy  and  physiology  of  the 
nervous  system  as  it  actually  exists  and  functions  in  animals 
and  in  man,  teaches  us  an  important  fact  which  we  ought 
to  represent  in  any  diagram  of  nervous  connections.  It  has 
been  found  that  the  same  two  points  (one  sensory  and  one 
motor)  are  almost  always  connected  in  several  ways,  by 
shorter  and  also  by  longer  conductors.  For  example,  if 
pain  is  caused  in  a  dog's  foot  and  the  foot  is  withdrawn, 
the  nervous  excitation  may  travel  from  the  foot  to  the  spinal 
cord  and  thence  to  the  muscles  moving  the  foot.  Or,  it  may 
travel  from  the  spinal  cord  farther  on  to  the  dog's  brain, 
thence  back  to  the  spinal  cord  and  now  only  to  the  muscles. 

In  an  early  stage  of  neurology  a  merely  two-fold  con- 
nection, including  or  not  including  the  "brain"  (a  somewhat 
indefinite  something),  was  supposed  to  exist.  One  then 
spoke  of  two  neural  "levels"  to  which  the  lower  and  the 
higher  "nerve  centers"  (another  rather  undefined  some- 
thing) belonged.     The  number  of  these  so-called  levels  of 


NERVOUS  ARCHITECTURE. 


75 


connection  was  later  increased  to  three,  and  three  classes 
of  lower  and  higher  centers  were  spoken  of.  From  three 
the  number  grew  to  four.  And  so  forth.  Today  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  number  of  different  levels  of  connec- 
tion is  very  great.  It  may  be  among  the  hundreds  or 
thousands.  The  total  number  of  neurons  available  for  the 
architecture  of  the  nervous  system  is  so  great  (five  thousand 
millions  or  more)  that  in  a  human  being  certainly  even  a 
thousand  levels  of  lower  and  higher  centers  are  far  from 
impossible.  It  seems  best  to  keep  out  of  this  field  of  spec- 
ulation. However,  there  is  no  reason  for  thinking  of  the 
number  of  different  levels  of  connection  as  being  very  small. 
He  who  thinks  only  of  a  two-fold  connection  of  greater 
and  lesser  length  between  corresponding  points,  and  re- 


Sc    Si    Sa 


A    WRONG    DESIGN    OF   A    NERVE 
CENTER. 


members  our  requirement  that  the  connections  of  non- 
corresponding  points  shall  be  longer  than  the  (direct)  con- 
nections of  corresponding  points,  will  readily  suggest  to 
us  as  a  suitable  design  for  the  architecture  of  the  nervous 
system  our  figure  showing  three  nested  reflex  arches  and 
additional  neurons  radiating  from  the  center  C. 


76  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEK-ONE. 

In  this  figure  we  can  travel  from,  say  S^,  to  the  corre- 
sponding point  Mg  over  a  longer  route  by  C  (four  standard 
lengths),  or  over  a  second  and  shorter  route  (three  standard 
lengths)  avoiding  C.  And  we  can  travel  from  S  to  a  non- 
corresponding  point,  say  M,,,  only  over  a  longer  route 
SgS^CM^Mf,  of  four  standard  lengths.  The  same  rule 
holds  good  for  other  combinations  of  sensory  and  motor 
points. 

Before  continuing  the  discussion  of  the  question  whether 
this  is  a  suitable  architectural  design  for  a  nervous  system, 
we  may  use  this  opportunity  of  making  clear  why  we  have 
drawn  each  conductor,  each  neuron,  in  the  shape  of  an 


A>- 


CHECK     VALVES    AT 

A    MEETING    POINT 

OF    NEURONS. 


arrow-like  rod.  We  can  easily  agree  and  remember  that 
the  point  of  any  arrow  shall  mean  that  no  excitation  can 
enter  here  from  any  other  neuron,  whereas  the  split  end 
shall  mean  that  an  excitation  can  enter  here,  but  cannot  pass 
out.  In  our  figure  with  the  lettering  A-B-C-D  three  neurons 
meet  in  one  point,  D.  An  excitation  here  may  pass  from 
AD  into  either  DB  or  DC,  but  no  excitation  can  pass  from 
either  CD  or  BD  into  DA.  It  is  as  if  a  multiple  check  valve 
located  at  D  allowed  the  flow  of  a  fluid  in  one  direction,  but 
prevented  the  flow  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  facts 
known  to  neurology  not  only  permit,  but  seem  to  force  us 
to  assume  that  the  meeting  point  of  two  or  more  neurons 
functions  like  a  check  valve. 


NEEVOUS  ARCHITECTURE.  / t 

Experiments  have  proved,  it  is  true,  that  an  excitation 
may  travel  in  a  neuron  in  either  direction.  But  normally 
no  excitation  originates  within  a  neuron.  And  with  res- 
pect to  the  propagation  from  neuron  to  neuron,  neurologi- 
cal experiment  and  observation  seem  to  agree  with  the 
view  expressed  in  our  drawings. 

Everybody  knows  that  our  feet  are  connected  with  our 
eyes  as  well  as  with  our  ears ;  of  course,  also  with  other 
sense  organs.  If  a  strange  and  ferocious  looking  animal  sud- 
denly appears  to  any  ordinary  person's  eye  while  he  is  sit- 
ting, he  jumps  up  and  starts  running — on  his  feet.  If  he 
is  sitting  in  the  theater,  and  suddenly  the  fearful  cry  "fire" 
strikes  his  ear,  he  also  jumps  up  and  starts  running — on 
his  feet.  That  is,  the  muscles  moving  his  feet  are  connected 
with  his  eye  as  well  as  with  his  ear. 

But  his  eye  and  ear  are  connected  with  many  other  mus- 
cles too.  PClse,  for  example,  he  would  not  turn  his  head  in 
response  to  a  friend's  call  or  eat  what  is  placed  before  him 
on  the  dinner  table. 

Neurologists  have  discovered  in  the  brain  the  so-called 
motor  region  of  the  feet.  If  this  region  of  the  brain  is 
artificially  stimulated,  the  muscles  belonging  to  the  feet  con- 
tract and  move  the  feet.  Suppose  the  excitation  caused  in 
the  brain  by  this  artificial  stimulus  could  proceed,  not  only 
in  the  direction  of  the  motor  organs  most  closely  connected, 
but  also  in  the  direction  of  sense  organs ;  then  a  good 
deal  of  it  would  go  to  the  eye  and  the  ear. 

The  eye  and  the  ear,  receiving  the  artificially  produced 
excitation  from  the  brain,  would  send  it  on  to  many  muscles 
of  the  body.  It  should  then  have  been  observed  that  in  re- 
sponse to  the  artificial  stimulation  mentioned  not  only  the 
feet,  but  many  parts  of  the  body  moved.  If  such  were  the 
case,  the  neurologists  would  never  have  discovered  the 
motor  region  of  the  feet. 


78  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

We  are  justified,  then,  in  our  assumption  of  a  one-way 
propagation  of  an  excitation  from  neuron  to  neuron,  always 
"away  from  the  nearest  sensory  points  and  toward  motor 
points." 

The  anatomical  connection  between  neurons  is  of  such  a 
wonderfully  elaborate  kind,  that  it  seems  quite  probable 
that  the  meeting  points  have  some  peculiar  functions.  This 
is  quite  likely  to  be  one  of  them, — to  serve  in  the  manner 
of  check  valves.  The  neurons  do  not  run  into  each  other 
like  wires  soldered  together,  but  the  end  branches  of  one 
surround  in  a  curious  way  the  end  of  the  other  neuron. 
This  has  been  called  synapse.  The  word  "synapse,"  of 
Greek  origin,  has  exactly  the  same  meaning  as  the  Latin 
word  "contact."  The  contact  between  neurons  is  of  a 
peculiar  kind,  so  much  so  that  some  have  said  it  ought  not 
to  be  called  contact  at  all, — and  have  called  it  synapse.  We 
shall  speak  of  it  again  at  a  later  ttme. 

We  must  now  return  to  the  question  whether  the  design 
of  our  figure  showing  three  nested  reflex  arches  is  suitable 
for  the  architecture  of  the  nervous  system.  It  would  be,  if 
we  could  restrict  ourselves  to  thinking  of  only  a  two-fold 
connection  between  corresponding  points,  to  thinking  of 
only  two  levels,  two  classes  of  (lower  and  higher)  nerve 
centers.  But  such  a  restriction  is  impossible.  A  concrete 
case  will  easily  show  why. 

We  recall  the  kind  of  concerted  action  which,  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  we  called  "serial"  action.  Remember  the 
example  of  the  irritating  insect  sitting  on  your  nose.  Nature 
has  enabled  you  to  respond  by  a  series  of  movements,  be- 
ginning with  easy  ones,  continuing  with  those  which  are  in- 
creasingly cumbersome.  If  at  any  moment  the  stimulus  is 
removed,  the  series  of  movements  is  discontinued.  What 
will  you  do,  if  you  have  accepted  the  position  of  assistant 


NEEVOUS  ARCHITECTURE.  79 

to  the  Creator  and  you  have  been  given  the  task  of  design- 
ing a  nervous  system  which  will  make  possible  such  serial 
activity  ? 

First  you  will  ask  yourself  if  the  condition  of  a  succes- 
sive occurrence  of  these  actions  can  possibly  be  reduced  to 
a  condition  of  a  mere  gradation  in  the  conductivity  of  vari- 
ous nervous  paths.  You  will  recall  that  it  is  well  known 
that  many  muscles  of  the  animal  body  are  so  made  that  the 
contraction  does  not  begin  at  the  very  moment  when  we 
have  reason  to  believe  the  excitation  begins  to  act  on  the 
muscle,  but  only  after  the  excitation  has  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  accumulate  the  effect  on  the  chemical  condition 
of  the  muscle  up  to  a  certain  degree. 

It  is  like  balancing  a  plank  on  a  fence  post  which  is  flat 
on  top,  placing  an  empty  bucket  on  one-half  of  the  plank 
not  too  far  sideways  to  disturb  the  balance,  and  slowly 
pouring  water  in  the  bucket  until  the  bucket  spills  the  water. 
When  will  it  spill  the  water?  The  first  few  drops  pouring 
into  the  bucket  will  have  no  visible  effect  on  the  plank.  But 
after  a  while  the  bucket  will  become  heavy  enough  to  dis- 
turb the  balance.  The  plank  will  tip  and  all  the  water  will 
be  spilled  at  once.  "All  or  none."  The  greater  the  rate  at 
which  we  pour  the  water  in  the  bucket,  the  sooner  the 
bucket  spills.  If  the  stream  running  in  is  very  weak,  the 
bucket  will  spill  its  contents  only  after  a  very  long  time. 

Interrupting  our  thought  here  a  moment,  we  may  mention 
that  an  excitation  on  entering  a  muscle  is  often  given  the 
name  of  "innervation."  This  word  has  it  origin  in  the 
thought  of  a  "nervous"  excitation  passing  "into"  a  muscle. 
We  can  use  the  words  "excitation"  and  "innervation"  in- 
discriminately, for  passing  into  a  muscle  (or  gland)  is  the 
purpose  of  ever)  excitation  which  has  its  origin  in  sensitive 
tissue.     It  is  not  customary,  however,  to  use  the  word  "in- 


80  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

nervation"  except  when  the  excitation  is  discussed  as  enter- 
ing into  a  muscle. 

The  innervation,  then,  can  be  said  to  accumulate  in  a 
muscle  until  its  accumulation  has  reached  that  degree  which 
the  muscle  requires  before  it  contracts. 

Then  we  can  indeed  reduce  the  condition  of  a  successive 
occurrence  of  movements  to  a  condition  of  a  mere  gradation 
in  the  conductivity  of  various  nervous  paths. 

The  sensory  point  on  the  nose  must  be  connected  by  a 
nervous  path  of  low  resistance  (that  is,  by  a  very  short  path) 
with  the  muscles  of  the  nose,  by  a  path  of  more  resistance 
with  the  neck  muscles  shaking  the  head,  by  paths  of  further 
increasing  resistances  with  the  right  arm,  the  left  arm,  the 
right  foot,  and  so  forth. 

Where  the  resistance  is  greatest  (the  conductivity  lowest), 
the  flow  of  the  excitation  is  smallest.  Where  the  resistance 
is  small,  the  nervous  current  is  strong  in  proportion.  In 
accordance  with  the  strength  of  the  current,  the  various 
muscles  receive  a  sufficient  amount  of  innervation  after  a 
varying  length  of  "latency."  This  means  that  during  a 
varying  length  of  time  the  presence  of  the  excitation,  ac- 
cumulating in  the  varying  muscles,  remains  "concealed." 
It  remains  concealed  until  "the  bucket  spills." 

The  strongest  current  goes  to  the  nose.  The  muscle  of 
the  nose  "spills"  first,  so  to  speak.  That  is,  the  first  re- 
action is  a  twitching  of  the  nose.  The  neck  muscles  con- 
tract second.  Those  of  the  rigth  arm,  the  left  arm,  and  so 
on,  contract  in  the  succession  corresponding  to  the  increas- 
ingly great  resistances  of  the  nervous  paths.  If,  however, 
the  stimulating  insect  is  at  any  moment  brushed  off,  from 
that  moment  the  current  of  excitation  ceases,  no  further 
accumulation  of  innervation  takes  place  in  any  muscle,  and 
no  further  contraction  and  movement  are  observed. 


NEEVOTJS  AECHITECTUEE.  81 

The  three  nested  reflex  arches  with  their  connections  by- 
additional  neurons  at  C,  obviously  do  not  make  possible  any 
array  of  nervous  paths  in  accordance  with  the  condition 
that  every  path  from  the  same  sensory  point  to  another  and 
another  motor  point  shall  have  a  different  resistance.  In 
the  design  a  single  path — we  have  seen — has  the  resistance 
of  three  units;  and  all  others  (in  the  design  only  two  others 
— but  any  number  equal  to  the  number  of  arches  drawn, 
minus  one)  have  the  same,  invarying,  resistance  of  four 
units.  If  the  stimulus  acts  on  the  sensory  point  S^,  the 
motor  point  M^  reacts  first  (under  the  assumption  made). 
But  the  motor  points  M^,  and  M^.  would  not  react  succes- 
sively to  the  prolonged  stimulation,  but  simultaneously.  We 
must  therefore  look  for  another  architectural  design,  if  we 
want  to  fulfill  the  task  which  we  imagine  ourselves  to  have 
accepted  from  the  Creator. 

A  very  simple  consideration  convinces  us  that  it  is  a 
mistake  to  try  to  represent  a  nerve  center  by  a  point. 

In  the  design  of  a  reflex  arch  the  horizontal  line  repre- 
sents a  nerve  center.  The  lines  falling  down  from  it  repre- 
sent sensory  and  motor  neurons.  The  "synapses"  belong- 
ing to  the  horizontal  line  may  be  regarded  as  belonging  to 
what  we  wish  to  call  the  nerve  center.  This  nerve  center 
is,  of  course,  a  "low"  nerve  center.  Its  two  "synapses" 
may  be  temporarily  considered  as  if  they  were  a  sensory 
and  a  motor  point.  In  this  sense  we  have  in  a  previous 
chapter  called  them  central  sensory  and  motor  points. 

Nothing  prevents  us  from  placing  over  a  pair  of  central 
sensory  and  motor  points  an  arch  exactly  like  a  reflex  arch 
placed  over  a  pair  of  peripheral  (true)  sensory  and  motor 
points.  Nothing  prevents  us  from  placing  over  this  second 
arch  (the  second  story  of  the  architecture,  so  to  speak)  a 
third;  over  the  third  a  fourth;  over  the  fourth  a  fifth;  and 


82  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

SO  forth,  as  long  as  there  is  any  necessity,  functionally,  for 
going  to  higher  and  higher  levels  of  connection. 

But  if  over  a  pair  of  central  sensory  and  motor  points 
a  higher  story  is  placed  which  consists  only  of  neurons 
falling  from  a  single  central  point,  C,  no  further  arch  can 
be  placed  over  this  single  central  point.  We  have  then 
reached  the  highest  nerve  center,  beyond  which  no  higher 
center  is  even  thinkable. 

Everything  we  know  about  the  anatomy  and  histology  of 
the  nervous  sytem  and  about  the  behavior  of  animals  con- 
tradicts such  a  conception  of  the  architectural  plan  of  the 
nervous  system.  If  we  wish  to  play  out  a  trump,  we  can 
say  that  such  a  conception  of  a  nervous  system  with  a  fixed 
ordinal  number  (second,  third,  or  higher,  but  fixed)  attached 
to  the  highest  possible  nerve  center  is  a  flat  denial  of  the 
theory  of  evolution.  The  evolution  of  the  nervous  system 
consists,  in  higher  animals  and  Man,  in  the  evolution  of 
higher  and  higher  centers,  making  more  and  more  indirect 
connection,  more  and  more  varied  combination,  of  the 
existing  reflexes  possible.  There  can  be  no  limitation  of 
this  evolution. 

The  higher  centers  must  be  arches  just  as  the  lower 
centers  are  arches.  And  the  connection  between  any  juxta- 
posited  arches  must  be  made  by  a  center  which  is  higher  than 
either  center  of  these  two  arches.  The  main  feature  of  a 
center,  in  a  drawing,  is  a  horizontal  line  and  never  a  single 
point. 

The  principle  of  design  for  the  connection  of  two  (or 
more)  arches  by  means  of  a  superposed  arch  can  be  stated 
thus :  In  order  to  draw  the  superposed  arch,  always  draw 
first  its  horizontal  line  in  a  convenient  position,  and  mark  the 
end  points  of  this  line  S  and  M.  Then  drop  from  the  S 
point  as  many  "shunted"  sensory  neurons  (legs,  so  to  speak) 


NERVOUS  ARCHITECTURE. 


83 


as  you  have  S-points  in  the  story  just  below,  in  order  to 
reach  these  S-points.  And  from  the  M-point  of  the  hor- 
izontal line  drop  an  equal  number  of  motor  neurons  (legs) 
to  the  M-points  just  below  this  level.  The  accompanying 
figure  shows  the  method  of  design  clearly  by  drawing  the 
arches  the  blacker,  the  higher  the  centers. 


5a 


4 


^h.s2L..<c 


A 

55 
t 


Mb 
40 


St 


VM 


Mc 
11 


A  USEFUL  DESIGN   OF  HIGHER   CENTERS. 


The  principle  does  not  demand  that  there  be  (as  in  this 
figure)  two  arches,  one  above  the  other,  both  over  the  points 
SI  and  Ml,  tho  in  series,  so  to  speak,  not  shunted.  One 
arch  SiS  'i    M    ^  M^    might   suffice,  according  to  circum- 

a       abo  abc       a  &  ... 

stances.  It  must  be  understood  that  in  this  special  drawing 
no  special  demands  have  forced  us  to  draw  an  arch  with 
the  roof  line  S^M  ^  This  might  have  been  left  out.  Nature 
can  do  the  one  or  the  other. 

It  is  also  perfectly  arbitrary  with  respect  to  the  general 
principle  of  the  design  that  we  have  left  out  the  second 


84  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE. 

pair  of  legs  in  the  second  story  arch  just  mentioned.  It  is 
only  our  wish  to  illustrate  serial  activity  which  has  made 
us  omit  the  two  otherwise  possible  neurons  S^S^  and  M^M^. 
If  this  serial  activity  was  not,  but  some  different  activity 
was  desired,  and  the  latter  demanded  these  neurons,  their 
places  could  be  filled. 

Where  from  any  central  point  two  (or  more)  legs  branch 
out  in  the  direction  of  an  equal  number  of  lower  centers, 
we  can  conceive  of  them  as  so  many  neurons  or  as  so  many 
long  branches  of  the  same  one  neuron.  Histology  reveals 
both  these  methods  as  actually  serving  such  necessities. 

The  nervous  system  which  we  have  designed,  we  have 
designed  with  the  well  understood  intention,  as  we  said,  of 
playing  the  Creator's  role  in  helping  an  animal  to  possess 
three  qualities :  first,  that  of  being  capable  of  responding 
locally;  second,  that  of  responding  by  several  movements 
strictly  simultaneously,  the  nervous  system  preventing  any 
lagging  behind  or  failure  of  a  movement  to  occur, — pre- 
venting it  by  regulating  the  movements  thru  some  common 
excitation  reaching  at  the  proper  moment  all  the  motor 
points  concerned ;  third,  that  of  responding  to  a  given  stim- 
ulus by  a  series  of  different  movements  in  regular  order. 
Our  three-fold  problem  seems  to  have  been  solved.  That 
i ,,  we  have  seen,  ai  least,  the  possibility  of  shifting  the  prrb- 
lem  from  the  field  of  mystery  into  the  clear  field  of  mechan- 
ics. 

First:  if  S^  is  stimulated,  more  of  the  current  goes  to 
Mjj  than  to  any  other  motor  point.    The  response  is  "local." 

Second:  if  S^  is  stimulated,  some  of  the  resulting  current 
can,  virtually  at  once,  reach  all  the  motor  points  of  the 
system,  Ma,  Mb.  and  Mc,  to  speed  them  up. 

Third:  if  Sj^  is  stimulated,  most  of  the  current  goes  to 
Mjj,  less  to  M^.,  and  still  less  to  M^.    In  the  last  case  there 


NEEVOUS  ARCHITECTUEE.  85 

is  only  a  single  path  leading  thru  seven  neurons.  In  the 
preceding  case  the  shortest  path  consists  of  five  neurons, 
and  the  figure  shows  an  additional,  shunted,  path  over  the 
highest  center,  making  the  total  resistance  less  than  five 
units.  And  in  the  first  mentioned  case  the  figure  shows,  in 
addition  to  the  reflex  path  of  three  neurons,  two  shunted 
paths  over  higher  centers,  making  the  total  resistance  much 
less  than  three  units.     Serial  activity  is  possible. 

Even  a  mechanical  phenomenon  can  be  made  still  clearer 
than  it  naturally  is  on  account  of  not  forcing  our  imagina- 
tion outside  of  the  simple  experiences  of  matter  and  motion. 
It  can  be  made  still  clearer  by  applying  computation. 

The  arithmetical  values  of  a  computation  in  any  situation 
in  business  as  well  as  in  school  studies  give  additional 
satisfaction  over  the  satisfaction  derived  from  a  mere 
knowledge  of  "more  or  less."  Or  do  we  not  prefer,  for  ex- 
ample, after  having  heard  a  tradesman  assert  that  he  sells 
shoes  cheaper  than  his  competitor,  to  hear  him  say  that 
they  are  50  cents  cheaper? 

Let  us,  then,  compute  how  any  conveniently  chosen  num- 
ber of  units  of  excitation  distribute  themselves  thru  the 
various  channels  of  our  last  figure.  The  whole  conception 
of  a  distribution  of  an  excitation,  let  us  mention  by  the  way, 
is  a  rather  recent  discovery. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  hardly  anybody  thought  of  a  ner- 
vous process  in  any  other  way  than  of  something  rolling 
along  like  a  golf  ball  over  a  rough  field,  striking  here  and 
changing  direction,  striking  there  and  changing  direction, 
without  breaking  up,  always  remaining  the  same  whole  ball. 
This  conception  has  now  become  recognized  as  utterly  im- 
possible. The  nervous  process  is  a  current,  a  stream,  last- 
ing as  long  as  the  stimulus  lasts.  The  nervous  current  dis- 
tributes itself  like  electricity,  or  water,  or  gas  in  a  city's  net- 


86  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-OJSE. 

work  of  distributing  wires  or  pipes.  A  nervous  current, 
having  its  source  at  a  sensory  point,  cannot  help  going,  ex- 
cept when  stopped  here  or  there  by  permanent  check  valves, 
thru  the  whole  network  of  conductors,  toward  all  the  motor 
points. 

But  the  intensity  of  the  current,  in  a  real  nervous  system 
with  its  innumerable  ramifications,  must  vary  enormously 
in  the  various  neurons  over  which  it  distributes  itself.  And 
the  intensity  with  which  its  energ}'  passes  out  of  the  nervous 
system  at  the  motor  points,  must  likewise  vary  enormously. 
Our  simple  design  with  only  three  levels  of  connection  can 
nevertheless  illustrate  this  difiFerence  of  intensity. 

Imagine  that  the  stimulus  is  applied  at  Sj,-  The  rule  to 
be  followed  for  the  computation  of  the  distribution  of  the 
excitation  is  a  double  one.  First,  from  any  division  point 
count  the  units  of  resistance  thru  which  the  excitation 
travels  in  "series"  (without  "shunts")  until  it  reaches  the 
next  division  point. — Second  rule :  add  to  this  number  the 
total  resistance  of  all  the  shunted  branches  leading  the  cur- 
rent from  the  latter  division  point  on  and  out  of  the  entire 
system. — In  working  out  the  second  rule  you  may  have  to 
re-apply,  perhaps  many  times,  both  the  first  and  the  second. 

From  S[,  to  S^  there  is  no  division  at  all.  Our  com- 
putation therefore  begins  only  at  the  latter  point. 

Two  questions : 

I.  Resistance  from  S|  to  the  right  and  out  equals — ? 

II.  Resistance  from  SI  upwards  and  out  equals — ? 
Question  1  is  easily  answered.     The  answer  is  2. 

From  S^  upwards  we  apply  our  rules.     We  count  1  until 

we  reach  another  division  point  in  the  figure,  S,^^^.     Then 

we  have  two  more  questions : 

III.  Resistance  from  S|^^^to  the  right  and  out  equals — ? 

IV.  Resistance  from  S^^^^  upwards  and  out  equals — ? 


NERVOUS  ARCHITECTURE.  87 

From  this  point  to  the  right  we  count  1  until  we  reach 
another  division  point.    Then  we  have  two  more  questions : 

V.  Resistance  from  Mj^^^  right  down  and  out  equals — ? 

VI.  Resistance  from  M^^^^   left    down  and  out  equals — ? 
Questions  V  and  VI  are  easily  answered.     In  each  case 

the  answer  is  2,  since  we  reach  either  M.   or  M     over  two 

'  0  c 

units  of  length,  two  units  of  resistance. 

The  total  resistance  of  these  last  two  shunted  branches 
must  now  be  found.  For  this  purpose  we  take  the  reciprocal 
values  of  these  resistances.  The  reciprocals  of  the  resist- 
ances indicate  the  conductivities  or  flux  values.  We  add 
these  reciprocals  together.  Then  we  take  the  reciprocal  of 
the  sum.  And  this  is  the  total  resistance  of  the  shunted 
branches.     Why  ? 

A  simple  consideration  will  show  the  reason  for  this  pro- 
cedure. Think  of  the  passage  of  an  audience  in  leaving  a 
theater  being  obstructed  by  the  smallness  of  the  number 
and  the  small  size  of  the  doors.  Giving  each  door  a  certain 
resistance  value,  we  can  not  add  these  values  together  and 
call  the  sum  the  total  resistance.  That  would  lead  to  the 
absurdity  of :  the  more  doors,  the  more  resistance, — and  out 
of  a  Chautauqua  tent,  being  all  doors,  the  audience  could 
not  get  out  at  all,  the  resistance  (obstruction  by  doors) 
being  so  great !  Of  course,  such  a  procedure  in  computing 
is  wrong. 

But  we  can  add  the  conductivities,  the  number  of  people 
getting  thru  every  door  in  a  unit  of  time.  The  greater  this 
total,  the  less  the  total  resistance  of  the  doors.  That  is,  the 
reciprocal  value  of  the  total  flux,  of  the  total  conductivity, 
of  the  sum  of  the  conductivities,  gives  us  the  total  resist- 
ance. 

The  answer  to  questions  V  and  VI  was  2  in  each  case. 
The  reciprocals  are  ^  and  ^.   The  sum  of  these  is  1.    The 


88  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

reciprocal  of  1  is  1.    That  is,  the  resistance  of  all  the  shunt- 
ed paths  from  M^^^^  out  of  the  system  is  1, 

This  leads  us  back  to  question  III.  The  resistance  from 
S^^  to  the  next  division  point,  M^^,  was  1,  and  from  this 
point  on  and  out  1  more.  So  the  answer  to  question  III  is 
2. 

Question  IV  refers  to  the  path  from  S^^  upwards  and 
out.  Going  upwards  we  counted  2  to  the  next  division 
point,  M  ^^  .     And  we  have  two  more  questions : 

VII.  Resistance  from  M  S    right  down  and  out  equals — ? 

VIII.  Resistance  from  M  I    left  down  and  out  equals — ? 

abc  ^_ 

Question  VII  is  easily  answered.  Down  to  the  right  we 
count  1  until  we  reach  the  next  division  point.  From  this 
point  out  we  encounter  over  all  shunted  paths  1  unit  more, 
as  computed  above.  The  answer  is  the  same  as  to  question 
III,  that  is,  2. 

The  answer  to  question  VIII  is  still  more  easily  found. 
It  is  3,  because  we  count  3  units  until  we  get  out  of  the 
system,  without  finding  any  shunts,  at  the  motor  point  M-^. 

We  now  take  the  reciprocals  of  the  answers  to  questions 
VII  and  VIII.  These  reciprocals  are  ^  andy.  Their  sum 
isf.     The  reciprocal  of  this  sum  is  f . 

Question  IV  demanded  that  we  take  this  sum,  4,  and  add 
it  to  2.  Two  units  of  resistance  from  Sjf^  to  MJ^,  and  f 
more,  result  in  a  total  of  -^,  which  is  the  answer  to  question 
IV. 

The  answer  to  question  III  was  2.  The  answer  to  ques- 
tion IV  was  V.  The  reciprocals  are  ^  and  A .  The  sum 
of  them  is  -VI,  and  the  reciprocal  of  the  sum  is  if. 

This  value  we  must  add  to  the  resistance  unit  1  in  order 
to  answer  question  II.  The  answer  to  question  II  is  there- 
fore H  plus  if,  or  H. 


NERVOUS  ARCHITECTURE.  89 

The  answer  to  question  I  was  2;  and  to  question  II,  as 
just  found,  -ff-  At  the  first  division  point  we  thus  find  a 
resistance  of  2  meeting  the  stream  of  the  excitation  toward 
the  right ;  and  a  resistance  of  -fl  meeting  the  stream  of  the 
excitation  upwards. 

The  flux  upwards  is  indicated  by  the  reciprocal  ^,  and 
the  flux  to  the  right  by  the  reciprocal  ^.  Using  common 
denominators  we  conclude  that  the  flux  toward  the  right 
is  indicated  by  f|,  and  the  flux  upwards  by  f|. 

Now,  the  denominator  in  no  way  concerns  us.  We  are 
not  interested  in  knowing  what  kind  of  units  the  flux 
units  are.  We  are  interested  only  in  the  relative  numbers 
of  the  flux  units,  that  is,  in  the  numerators  of  the  fractions 
having  a  common  denominator.  It  will  make  no  difference 
to  us  (interested  only  in  the  division,  the  manner  of  dis- 
tribution, of  the  total  flux)  whether  the  units  are  barrels, 
gallons,  quarts,  fifty-eighths,  cubic  centimeters,  or  what  not. 

We  now  know  that,  for  every  29  units  going  to  the  right, 
26  units  go  upwards  at  this  first  division  point.  We  naturally 
choose  as  the  total  number  of  units  which  we  imagine  to 
enter  at  the  point  of  stimulation,  the  sum  of  the  29  and  the 
26  units,  that  is,  55  units.  No  smaller  or  larger  number  is 
equally  convenient.  These  values  we  write  in  our  figure  in 
the  proper  places,  55,  29  and  26.  Look  at  the  figure,  and 
you  find  them  there. 

The  26  units  divide  at  the  next  division  point  in  accor- 
dance with  the  answers  to  questions  III  and  IV.  The  re- 
sistance to  the  right  is  2,  upwards  V-  The  flux  to  the  right 
is  indicated  by  ^,  that  upwards  by  j-g.  In  common  denomi- 
nators /,  and  ^\.  That  is,  for  every  8  units  going  to  the 
right,  5  units  go  upwards.  If  of  13  units  8  go  to  the  right 
and  5  upwards,  then  of  the  26  to  be  divided  16  go  to  the 
right  and  10  upwards.  These  values  16  and  10  we  write  in 
our  figure  in  the  proper  places. 


90  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE. 

The  ten  units  of  excitation  go  one  neuron  upwards,  then 
one  neuron  to  the  right,  and  divide  here  in  accordance  with 
the  answers  to  questions  VII  and  VIII.  The  resistance 
right  down  is  2,  the  resistance  left  down  is  3.  The  recipro- 
cals are  -I  and  3.  The  common  denominator  is  6.  That  is, 
the  flux  right  down  is  indicated  by  f ;  and  the  flux  left 
down  is  indicated  by  f .  For  every  3  units  going  right  down, 
2  units  of  excitation  go  left  down.  The  ten  units  in  question 
are  therefore  distributed  so  that  6  go  right  down  and  4 
left  down. 

The  latter  4  units  pass  out  of  the  system  at  the  motor 
point  Mg  without  further  division.  We  write  the  number 
4  under  this  motor  point  in  our  figure. 

The  6  units  of  flux  going  right  down  meet  at  the  next 
lower  nerve  center  16  other  units  coming  from  the  left, 
making  here  a  total  of  22.  Half  of  them,  11,  go  to  the 
right  down  and  pass  out  of  the  system  at  the  motor  point 
M^  without  further  division.  We  write  the  number  11 
under  this  motor  point  in  our  figure. 

The  other  half  of  the  22  go  to  the  left  down  and  meet  at 
the  next  lower  nerve  center  29  others,  making  a  total  of  40. 
These  40  pass  out  of  the  system  at  the  motor  point  M^^, 
under  which  we  write  in  our  figure  ^his  number  40. 

The  addition  of  4,  40  and  11  gives  55.  The  total  number 
of  flux  units  going  out  must  be  equal  to  the  number  going  in. 
This  is  a  check  on  the  computation. 

We  now  have  the  clearest  possible  conception  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  nervous  system  distributes  an  excita- 
tion, resulting  from  the  application  of  a  stimulus  to  a  sen- 
sory point,  during  its  flow  toward  the  motor  points  of  the 
body. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Other-One  Appears  now  Attentive,  now  Absent- 
MiNDED,  NOW  Inattentive. 

There  is  a  joke  about  a  man  standing  on  a  busy  street 
corner  and  obstructing  the  traffic.  The  traffic  policeman 
approaches  him  and  says:  "Move  on,  sir."  He  receives 
the  reply :  "It's  your  move,  sir." 

The  enthusiastic  chess  player,  walking  home,  is  still  oc- 
cupied with  his  own  and  his  partner's  possible  moves.  He 
is  ready  to  make  one  of  these  moves  on  the  real  chess  board, 
and  also  ready  to  ask  his  partner  (anybody)  to  make  such 
a  move,  altho  the  stimuli  which  he  receives  from  the  street 
traffic  are  normally  not  responded  to  either  by  a  horizontal 
and  specially  directed  hand  movement  or  by  the  vocal  action 
of  requesting  someone  else  to  make  a  horizontal  hand  move- 
ment. 

What  do  we  call  such  an  abnormal  readiness  to  respond 
by  a  definitely  limited  class  of  actions  to  any  kind  of  stim- 
ulation? A  stimulus  which  is  normally  not  responded  to 
by  a  certain  action  should  be  called  a  stimulus  "inadequate" 
to  this  reaction.  What  then  do  we  call  such  a  responsive- 
ness to  an  inadequate  stimulus?  We  call  it  popularly  "ab- 
sent-mindedness." And  what  is  its  cause  within  the  nervous 
system  ? 

Before  answering  the  last  question,  some  further  illustra- 
tions are  desirable.  You  meet  a  person  on  the  street  who 
knows  you  well.  You  expect  him  to  respond  to  the  stimulus 
of  your  appearance  by  an  adequate  action.     You  observe, 

(91) 


92  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

however,  that  while  passing  you  he  looks  you  over  from  head 
to  foot  without  saying  anything  or  doing  anything  which 
could  be  called  recognition  or  salute.  That  he  wishes  to 
offend  you,  to  snub  you,  is  improbable.  He  is  "absent- 
minded."  To  the  action  of  measuring  by  the  eye,  or  of 
staring,  the  fortuitous  sight  of  an  acquaintance  on  the  street 
cannot  be  regarded  as  an  adequate  stimulus. 

A  naturalist  on  the  lake  shore  picks  up  things,  examines 
them,  and  throws  them  away.  He  catches  a  frog  in  a  net 
and  takes  him  in  his  left  hand.  With  his  right  hand  he 
takes  out  his  watch.  After  a  little  while  he  puts  the  frog 
in  his  vest  pocket  and  drops  his  watch  on  the  ground.  To 
neither  of  these  actions  did  the  one  or  the  other  hand  receive 
an  adequate  stimulus.  The  naturalist,  we  say,  is  "absent-min- 
ded."   What  goes  on  in  his  nervous  system? 

There  is  a  widely  distributed  stream  of  excitation  in  the 
nervous  system.  It  comes  probably  from  many  sensor; 
points  and  obviously  goes  with  the  greatest  intensity  of 
flux  in  the  direction  of  the  motor  point  where  the  reaction 
is  observed.  The  reaction  seems  unusual.  That  is,  this  flux 
ordinarily  does  not  take  this  direction.  If  it  nevertheless 
goes  there,  a  temporary  influence  must  have  changed  the 
conductivities — in  favor  of   this  motor  point. 

In  the  three  illustrative  examples  of  absent-mindedness 
the  nature  of  this  temporary  influence  appears  clear  enough. 
If  we  make  the  necessary  inquiry  we  find  that  the  chess 
enthusiast  is  not  returning  from  a  two  hours  sitting  in  a 
dentist's  chair,  but  from  a  championship  game.  My  friend 
who  gave  me  the  cold  looks,  is  not  returning  from  a  social 
affair  of  the  college  faculty,  but  from  a  discussion  in  the 
anthropology  research  club.  And  the  naturalist  has  not 
spent  the  last  hour  in  repairing  watches,  but  in  picking 
things  up  from  the  ground,  examining  them,  and  throwing 
them  away. 


INATTENTION  93 

Such  effects  are  produced  quickly — in  an  hour,  or  even  in 
a  few  minutes — and  vanish  quickly.  They  are  not  lasting, 
end  they  must  therefore  not  he  confused  with  or  given  the 
name  of  habits.  The  change  of  conductivity  in  a  telephone 
transmitter  due  to  contact  improvement  among  the  carbon 
particles  pressed  against  by  the  membrane  is  a  familiar 
analogy.  Some  imaginable  kind  of  increased  permeability 
between  neurons  seems  to  be  the  most  plausible  explanation 
of  the  fact  of  this  so-called  absent-mindedness.  The  simplest 
to  think  of  is  by  contact  improvement, — no  matter  whether 
it  is  the  true  one  or  not. 

One  can  see  a  living  ameba  form  branches  resembling 
the  dendrites  of  a  nerve  cell ;  and  these  branches  stretch 
and  recede.  Maybe  one  could  invent  favorable  conditions 
for  observing  a  living  nerve  cell  and  see  its  dendrites  stretch 
and  recede,  thereby  improving  the  contact.  What  cause 
could  make  them  thus  stretch  and  recede?  Only  that  zvhich 
goes  on  in  that  very  tissue,  that  is,  only  the  currents  of 
excitation.  We  regard — this  is  a  conceptual  peg  on  which 
to  hang  innumerable  facts — a  temporary  stretching  of  the 
dendrites  as  always  resulting  from  the  passage  of  a  current 
thru  them.  The  important  thing  here  is  that  we  avoid  think- 
ing of  a  permanent  change  of  the  zvhole  neuron. 

The  natural  consequence  is  that  these  sensory  points 
which  previously  could  send  only  a  small  amount  of  their 
excitation  in  this  direction,  can  send  a  larger,  possibly  their 
largest  fraction,  to  this  motor  point.  The  result  is  a  local 
reaction  where  we  did  not  expect  it,  guiding  our  expectation 
by  our  knowledge  of  the  "situation"  and  of  the  customary 
reactions.  A  situation  is  the  sum  of  all  the  stimuli  of  the 
moment.    We  knew  the  situation  to  be  inadequate. 

We  are  here  attributing  to  the  synapse  a  second  function. 
In  a  previous  chapter  we  regarded  it  as  highly  probable  that 
the  synapse  region  functions  as  a  check  valve.    We  now  re- 


94  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

gard  it  as  probable  that  the  synapse  has  this  second  function, 
— of  reducing  its  own  resistance,  and  of  reducing  thereby 
the  resistance  of  a  whole  path,  after  this  path  has  given 
somewhat  prolonged  passage  to  a  nervous  current  thru  this 
synapse. 

How  long  must  a  current  pass,  before  the  reduction  of 
resistance  just  spoken  of  becomes  noticeable?  After  some 
hours  it  can  be  very  conspicuous,  as  in  our  examples  above. 
But  even  a  few  minutes  may  show  a  strong  enough  effect. 
Every  student  knows  how  difficult  it  is  during  the  first  few 
minutes  to  follow  the  trend  of  thought  of  his  instructor,  if 
another  course  has  occupied  the  student  during  the  preced- 
ing period.  We  may  call  the  student  "absent-minded"  or 
we  may  call  him  "preoccupied."  It  means  the  same.  After 
a  few  minutes  the  difficulty  vanishes,  and  he  becomes  "ab- 
sent-minded" in  a  new  direction  desired  by  the  new  teacher. 
The  effect  on  the  synapses,  then,  already  after  a  very  few 
minutes,  both  disappears  and  again  makes  its  conspicuous 
appearance  elsewhere. 

The  experienced  teacher  gives  the  student  a  chance  to 
"warm  up"  at  the  beginning  of  the  period.  Athletes,  too, 
take  warming  up  exercises  for  a  few  minutes  just  before  a 
contest.  The  valuable  effect  of  reducing  the  nervous  re- 
sistances in  the  desired  direction  is  much  greater  to  them 
than  the  undesirable  effect  of  tiring  a  little  the  muscles  need- 
ed for  the  contest.  (This  statement  does  not  deny  that  there 
may  also  be  advantageous  changes  in  the  muscles  themselves 
during  the  warming  up  exercises.)  After  half  a  minute 
the  original  difficulty  of  doing  the  new  work  in  the  class 
room  or  elsewhere  may  already  appear  considerably  re- 
duced. With  the  continuance  of  the  current  the  effect  grows 
steadily.  After  an  hour  or  two  the  effect  may  become  quite 
surprising,  as  in  the  above  examples. 

The  effect  would  be  more  ordinary,  less  surprising,  if 
its  cause  were  of  more  common  occurrence  than  it  is.     As 


INATTENTION.  95 

a  matter  of  fact,  being  busily  occupied  in  the  same  manner 
for  an  hour  or  two  is  a  phenomenon  which  is  relatively  in- 
frequent among  ordinary  people,  (Compare,  however,  the 
next  paragraph.)  For  many  reasons,  too  numerous  and 
loo  varied  to  mention  here,  people  rarely  choose  to  be  oc- 
cupied for  hours  by  the  same  kind  of  strenuous  life.  "Let's 
do  something  else  now,"  every  few  minutes,  is  not  only  the 
rule  of  life  with  children,  but  also  with  grown  people,  unless 
some  outside  force  like  school  discipline,  army  discipline,  or 
business  discipline  supersedes  the  instinct  of  the  ordinary 
being. 

But  the  factory  worker  is  not  absent-minded  when  he 
walks  home.  Does  he  not  perform  the  same  movements 
for  eight  hours?  And  yet  nobody  would  choose  him  as  a 
sample  of  absent-mindedness.  He  does  not  appear  "pre- 
occupied" when  he  leaves  the  factory.  The  reason  why  he 
does  not  show  this  effect  can  hardly  be  sought  in  any  other 
fact  than  that  his  work  depends  mainly  on  lower  nerve 
centers.  There  is  a  differentiation  between  the  nervous 
tissue  making  up  the  lower  and  the  higher  centers.  Many 
reasons,  pharmacological  experience  for  example,  favor  this 
assumption.  Drugs  do  not  seem  to  affect  the  lower  and 
higher  centers  equally.  Neither  does  work — that  is,  the 
passing  of  nervous  currents — seem  to  affect  them  equally. 

The  routine  work  of  a  factory  is  not  likely  to  involve 
very  high  centers  of  the  nervous  system.  That  seems  to 
be  the  reason  why  it  does  not  result  in  "preoccupation."  in 
"absent-mindedness."  The  synapses  seem  to  be  the  more 
susceptible  to  the  influence  of  a  current  the  higher  the  nerve 
centers  in  which  they  are  located.  Only  there,  in  the  high 
centers,  do  the  dendrites  seem  to  stretch  out  or  recede  ap- 
preciably, according  as  a  current  has  passed  thru  them  or 
no  current  has  passed  thru  them,  during  so  much  time. 


96  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEK-ONE. 

It  goes  without  saying,  altho  we  have  just  said  it,  that 
the  synapse  increases  its  resistance  by,  slowly  and  to  a 
certain  limit,  withdrawing  its  dendrites  when  no  current 
passes  thru  them.  The  "absent-mindedness,"  we  know, 
gradually  disappears,  in  some  minutes  or  in  some  hours, 
especially  during  a  period  of  normal  sleep  over  night. 

The  Other-One's  behavior  affects  our  life  for  one  or  the 
other  of  two  opposite  reasons.  The  Other-One  may  vitally 
interest  us  because  he  does  something.  The  Other-One 
may  vitally  interest  us  because  he  does  not  do  a  certain 
thing.  After  having  obtained  a  clear  conception  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  a  nervous  current,  in  the  preceding  chapter,  we 
can  see  a  positive,  affirmative,  aspect  in  both  cases,  in  the 
Other-One's  action  as  well  as  in  his  failure  to  act  as  we 
expected.  We  have  learned  to  think  of  any  single  nervous 
current  as  passing  out  strongly  at  one  motor  point,  X,  and 
weakly  at  all  others.  In  such  a  case  we  report  (for  example, 
to  a  newspaper,  or  to  a  friend)  that  the  Other-One  respond- 
ed to  the  stimulus  by  a  local  reaction  at  X  (some  of  his 
limbs).  But  we  would  be  equally  justified  in  reporting  that 
the  Other-One's  local  reaction  at  Y  (another  limb)  did  not 
occur;  or  that  the  Other-One's  local  reaction  at  Z  (a  fur- 
ther limb)  did  not  occur.  For  example,  after  giving  a 
newsboy  a  quarter  for  his  newspaper  and  refusing  the 
change,  we  may  report  that  he  said  "Thank  you."  But  we 
can  also  quite  correctly  and  truthfully  report :  "He  did  not 
stand  on  his  head."  Especially  correct  would  this  latter  re- 
port be,  if  we  had  been  asked  by  anybody — say  a  lawyer  in 
the  court  room — whether  the  boy  stood  on  his  head. 

The  affirmative  aspect  of  the  latter  case,  in  terms  of 
nervous  currents,  would  be  this :  "One  of  the  smaller  frac- 
tions of  the  nervous  currents  went  to  the  muscles  which  turn 
a  boy  from  his  feet  upon  his  head."    This  affirmative  state- 


INATTENTION.  97 

ment  implies  that  this  local  action  did  not  take  place;  that 
these  muscles  may  have  contracted  a  little;  but  that  other 
muscular  contractions  were  overwhelmingly  strong. 

If  a  recent  influence  during  some  minutes  or  hours  has 
brought  about  a  change  of  resistances  in  the  synapses  such 
that  the  largest  fraction  of  the  nervous  current  goes  to 
these  muscles,  then  the  boy  will  stand  on  his  head  without 
an  adequately  stimulating  situation.  Almost  any  stimulus 
will  then  serve  this  end. 

For  example,  he  may  have  stood  on  his  head  much  during 
the  preceding  hour,  while  attending  a  rehearsal  at  a  circus 
where  he  occasionally  is  engaged  as  a  clown.  We  later  on 
the  street  give  him  a  quarter,  and  he — "absently  mindedly" 
— now  stands  on  his  head. 

It  helps  us  greatly  in  studying  and  comprehending  the 
Other-One's  life  if  we  always  remember  that  every  form 
of  behavior  has  both  an  affirmative  and  a  negative  aspect. 
There  is  always  a  response,  in  normal  and  waking  life,  to 
every  stimulus ;  negativeness  of  response  then  does  not  con- 
sist in  nothing,  but  in  something  that  is  not  the  expected 
thing.  In  "absent-mindedness"  the  affirmative  aspect  re- 
fers to  the  fact  that  the  largest  of  all  the  fractions  of  the 
single  nervous  current  passes  out  of  the  system  at  a  partic- 
ular motor  point.  The  negative  aspect  refers  to  the  (also 
affirmative)  fact  that  at  any  particular  other  motor  point 
in  which  an  outsider  may  be  interested  a  minor  fraction  of 
the  currert  passes  out. 

The  traffic  policeman  expects  the  man  to  walk.  This  ex- 
pected response  remains  negative.  Instead  of  it  there  is  the 
positive  response  of  strange  talk. 

I  expect  my  acquaintance  to  say:  "How  are  you  this 
morning?"     Instead  of  that  he  silently  looks  me  over. 

We  expect  the  naturalist  to  put  his  watch  in  his  pocket. 
Instead  of  that  he  drops  it  on  the  ground. 


98  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  THE  OTHER-ONE 

In  these  cases  we  had  to  consider  only  a  single  current 
at  a  time.  A  similar  statement  to  that  made  above  about 
an  affirmative  and  a  negative  aspect  of  one  and  the  same 
event  is  to  be  made  when  we  have  two  or  more  currents. 
This  leads  us  from  the  discussion  of  "preoccupation"  to 
that  of  a  different  phase  of  the  Other-One's  life. 

By  a  single  current  we  meant  a  current  coming  from  one 
sensory  point.  Of  course,  this  sensory  point  may  actually 
be  something  so  complex  as  "the  eye,"  including  not  only 
thousands  of  sensitive  cells,  but  even  both  eyes. 

If  there  are  two  currents  to  be  considered,  if  two  sensory 
points  are  imagined  to  be  stimulated,  it  can  be  regarded  as 
virtually  impossible  that  the  two  excitations  are  of  exactly 
the  same  intensity.    Let  it  be  stronger  at  A  than  at  B. 

The  affirmative  aspect  of  the  event  then  is  this.  Most  of 
the  current  from  the  sensory  point  A  passes  out  at  the  motor 
point  X ;  and  this  outflow  is  stronger  than  that  at  the  motor 
point  Y,  where  most  of  the  current  from  the  sensory  point 
B  passes  out. 

The  negative  aspect  of  the  same  event  is  this.  Most  of 
the  current  from  the  sensory  point  B  passes  out  at  the  motor 
point  Y;  and  this  outflow  is  weaker  than  that  at  the  motor 
point  X,  where  most  of  the  current  from  the  sensory  point 
A  passes  out. 

But  in  the  Other-One's  real  affairs  is  this  negative  aspect 
negative  enough  to  suit  Nature's  needs?  A  concrete  ex- 
ample will  make  this  question  clearer. 

If  the  Other-One  is  a  college  student  of  the  Fiji  Islands 
sitting  under  a  cocoa  palm  before  a  monkey  and  a  college 
professor,  these  two  performing  simultaneously  before  the 
student,  can  the  newspaper  reporter  truthfully  report  to  his 
readers  that  the  muscular  reactions  called  forth  in  the 
audience  by  the  performance  of  the  professor  were  negli- 


INATTENTION  99 

gible,  not  worth  mentioning?  He  probably  can  so  report; 
but  still  more  comforting  to  the  Islanders  and  especially  to 
their  Board  of  Education  would  be  his  report  that  in  the 
strictest  sense  there  were  no  such  muscular  reactions,  so 
that  no  harm  could  come  to  Nature's  intentions  from  having 
in  every  monkey  circus  also  an  intruding  professor  lecturing 
from  a  pulpit  on  such  a  senseless  thing  as  algebra. 

Nature,  uninterfered  with  by  the  intentions  and  inven- 
tions of  civilized  mankind,  ought,  if  she  could,  to  object  to 
such  wasteful  endeavors  as  algebra  lectures,  considering  the 
educational  advantages  of  a  monkey  performance,  from 
which  the  student  can  learn  the  essential  features  of  s!:ill 
necessary  for  getting  cocoa  nuts. 

The  example  probably  suffices  to  make  it  clear  that  the 
builvler  of  the  nervous  system  ought  to  provide  for  some 
means  by  which  in  the  given  case  the  second  stimulus  (the 
professor)  and  many  further  stimuli  also  of  less  importance 
than  the  monkey  can  be  made  entirely  innocuous. 

Nature  has  indeed  made  such  a  provision.  The  stimuli 
causing  the  weaker  excitations  are  made  entirely  innocuous 
by  being  entirely  eaten  up,  so  to  speak,  by  the  stronger 
ones.  Nature  gets  rid  of  the  wasteful  influence  on  the 
students'  life  by  the  algebra  professor.  Nature  does  this 
by  forcing  him  to  "compete."  Now,  what  does  it  mean 
to  "force  a  stimulus  to  compete  with  another  stimulus?" 
An  example  of  things  which  do  not  compete  will  make  clear 
what  competing  things  are. 

A  ship,  driven  by  several  things — the  wind,  the  current, 
the  screw — ,  follows  all  of  them  simultaneously.  We  can 
find  its  place  on  the  map  after  an  hour  thus :  we  draw  first 
a  line  thru  which  it  would  move  during  an  hour  driven  only 
by  the  wind ;  from  the  end  point  we  draw  another  line  thru 
which  it  would  move  on  the  map  during  an  hour  driven 


100  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE 

only  by  the  current ;  from  the  end  point  we  now  draw  a 
third  hne  thru  which  it  would  move  during  an  hour  driven 
only  by  the  propeller.  The  final  actual  result  is  the  same. 
At  the  end  point  of  the  third  line  the  ship  is  actually  found 
after  an  hour ;  only  it  did  not  move  to  this  point  over  the 
zig-zag  line  we  drew,  but  over  a  straight  line  called  the 
resultant.  But,  let  us  say  it  again,  the  final  result  is  the 
same.  The  place  which  the  ship  reaches  after  one  hour 
under  the  influence  of  three  forces  is  exactly  the  same  as 
that  which  it  would  have  reached  if  one  of  these  forces  had 
acted  for  one  hour,  the  second  force  alone  for  a  second 
hour,  and  the  third  force  alone  for  a  third  hour.  This  fact 
we  express  by  saying  that  those  things  which  are  studied 
in  physics,  whenever  they  are  under  the  influence  of  several 
forces,  are  governed  by  the  law  of  the  resultant. 

The  Other-One's  mode  of  response  is  entirely  different 
from  that  of  the  ship.  If  he  attends  for  one  hour  a  mon- 
key's performance  and  for  another  hour  an  algebra  teacher's 
performance  and  then  is  given  an  examination  on  what 
happened  during  the  two  hours,  the  result  is  by  no  means 
the  same  as  that  of  an  examination  given  at  the  end  of  one 
hour,  during  which  both  the  monkey  and  the  professor  per- 
formed simultaneously. 

We  never  speak  of  the  competition  of  the  forces  of 
physics.  Do  not  think  of  positive  and  negative  forces  in 
physics  as  competing.  Never  is  one  of  them  selected  and 
the  other  one  neglected.  They  are  added  together,  and  thus, 
by  addition,  the  resultant  is  found. 

But  we  may  speak  of  the  competition  of  the  forces  which 
act  on  the  Other-One.  We  may  in  other  cases  speak  of 
their  resultant.  That  depends  on  circumstances  within  the 
network  of  the  nervous  system. 


INATTENTION  101 

When  we  speak  of  competition,  the  selective  effect  of  the 
Other-One's  nervous  system  on  the  situation,  on  the  totahty 
of  the  stimuH,  is  popularly  called  "attention."  We  say  that 
the  college  class  gives  attention,  or  that  it  cannot  help  giving 
attention,  to  the  monkey  performing  simultaneously  with 
the  professor;  and  that  the  college  class  does  not  give  at- 
tention to  the  professor  during  the  monkey's  performance. 

Nothing  is  more  ordinary  in  the  Other-One's  life  than 
events  of  this  kind.  He  looks  up,  and  many  things  are  pro- 
jected upon  his  retina.  But  few  succeed  in  being  "attended 
to,"  in  being  reacted  upon  by  his  muscles  When  the  Other- 
One  reads  a  book,  he  cannot  accomplish  everything  that  we 
wish  he  could.  He  gives  attention  to  the  meaning  and  fails 
to  notice  the  beauty  of  style.  He  is  engaged  to  look  for 
typographical  errors,  and  we  find  with  regret  that  he  does 
not  notice  a  lack  of  logical  connection  between  two  sen- 
tences. For  each  purpose  a  new  reading  is  necessary.  We 
do  not  expect  him — because  we  have  found  that  we  cannot 
expect  him — to  write  an  essay  while  a  piano  is  being  played 
on  one  side  and  a  crying  baby  occupies  the  other  side  of 
his  room.  Ask  him  to  solve  a  problem  in  arithmetic,  in 
order  to  save  time,  while  he  is  performing  a  gymnasium  feat. 
He  brings  the  reply  that  he  cannot  do  it.  A  student  tries 
to  prepare  a  lesson  while  walking  at  a  rapid  gait.  He  does 
not  succeed.  The  difficulty  of  reading  during  the  motion 
of  walking  is  not  the  main  obstacle,  for  he  succeeds  fairly 
while  being  shaken  just  as  badly  in  an  omnibus.  It  is  his 
own  action  in  walking  which  competes  with  every  other 
action.  In  the  omnibus  there  is  little  such  competing  action. 
The  Other-One  listens  to  music,  and  we  see  him  shut  his 
eyes,  excluding  thus  the  competition  of  the  visual  stimuli. 
The  examples  could  be  continued  indefinitely. 

According  to  the  popular  view,  attention  is  an  independ- 
ent force,  a  steersman  who  stands  at  the  helm,  so  to  speak. 


102  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHEE-ONE 

and  changes  the  ship's  course  arbitrarily  or  by  prearrange- 
ment.  This  is  pure  mythology.  The  enhancement  and 
impairment  of  nervous  currents,  which  are  the  concrete 
facts  behind  the  abstract  terms  "attention  and  inattention," 
are  not  the  results  of  an  independent  force,  but  simply  the 
effects  of  peculiar  quantitative  relations  existing  between 
these  nervous  currents.  Why  these  quantitative  relations 
of  the  nervous  currents  have  on  the  muscular  activities 
usually  the  effect,  not  of  a  "resultant,"  that  is,  of  addition, 
but  of  "competition,"  that  is,  of  selection,  must  now  be 
made  clear  and  plausible. 

An  experiment  made  first  some  years  ago  by  the  biologist 
Uexkuell  on  a  nerve-muscle  preparation  is  so  instructive, 
clarifies  our  thought  by  the  simplicity  of  its  details  so  much, 
that  we  must  not  omit  it  here.  Our  double  figure  shows, 
right  as  well  as  left,  between  the  letters  V  and  H  the  same 
part  of  the  nervous  system  of  a  worm.  V  is  the  ventral 
cord,  which  corresponds  in  a  worm  to  the  spinal  cord  in  a 
vertebrate  animal.  In  the  head  region  the  ventral  cord 
splits  and  surrounds  the  mouth  opening,  then  unites  again 
in  the  front  region  of  the  head  and  forms  here  the  head 
ganglion,  H.  On  the  left  and  right  sides  of  the  head  are 
muscles,  called  L  and  R  in  the  figure.  The  essential  feature 
of  the  nerve-muscle  preparation  is  the  cutting  of  the  left 
branch  of  the  head  division  of  the  nervous  system  near  the 
ventral  cord,  at  the  point  marked  C  in  the  figure. 

The  experiment  consists  of  two  phases,  the  results  of 
which  are  to  be  compared.  The  results  are  shown  separately 
in  the  drawing  on  the  left  and  in  the  drawing  on  the  right. 
On  the  left  the  head  ganglion  alone  is  stimulated.  This  is 
indicated  by  the  cross  under  it.  The  result  on  the  muscles 
is  exactly  what  anybody  would  expect.  Both  muscles  re- 
spond equally  by  contraction,  since  they  are  reached  by  the 


INATTENTION 


103 


excitation  coming  from  the  head  ganglion  with  equal  in- 
tensity. 

In  the  other  phase  of  the  experiment,  in  the  drawing  on 
the  right  of  the  figure,  the  head  ganglion  is  stimulated  as 
before.  Rut  at  the  same  time  the  ventral  cord  is  stimulated 
much  more  strongly  than  the  head  ganglion.  This  is  in- 
dicated in  the  figure  by  the  double  cross  at  the  point  V.  The 
result  on  the  muscles  is  not  an  additive,  but  a  selective  re- 
sult.   The  left  muscle,  previously  just  like  the  right  muscle 


+ 

DEFLECTION    OF    A    CURRENT    IN    A    NERVE-MUSCLE 
PREPARATION. 


somewhat  contracted,  now  completely  relaxes.  Obviously 
none  of  the  excitation  from  H  can  pass  out  at  L  any  more. 

None  of  the  excitation  from  V  can  pass  out  at  L,  of 
course,  because  of  the  gap  at  C.  All  of  the  excitation  from 
V  as  well  as  from  H  now  obviously  passes  out  at  R.  In- 
deed the  right  muscle  in  this  case  is  greatly  contracted, 
quite  contrasting  with  the  relaxed  left  muscle. 

To  the  student  inexperienced  in  the  phenomena  of  the 
natural  sciences  this  is  very  surprising,  almost  mysterious. 
To  him  who  is  familar  with  the  natural  sciences  and  their 
history  this  not  so  surprising.     It  is  merely  an  additional 


104  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE 

interesting  example  of  the  fact  that — if  we  are  clever  enough 
to  see  the  law  and  order  reigning  in  the  apparent  chaos — we 
find  everywhere,  vSay,  in  electricity,  what  we  find  in  mechan- 
ics ;  we  find  in  chemistry  what  we  find  in  mechanics ;  we 
find  in  biology  what  we  find  in  mechanics ;  and  so  forth : 
that  is,  that  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion  are  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  all  Nature,  only  growing  more  complex  as 
we  pass  from  the  field  strictly  called  mechanics  to  those 
other  natural  sciences.  This  experiment  is  a  beautiful 
illustration  fit  to  be  incorporated  in  any  History  of  General 
Science. 

A  well  known  law  of  mechanics  states  that  the  pressure 
in  a  moving  fluid  (liquid  or  gas)  is  the  less  the  greater  the 
velocity.  If  the  velocity  becomes  zero,  the  pressure  reaches 
a  maximum.  And  a  moving  fluid  therefore  attracts,  by 
suction,  another  fluid  which  moves  with  a  lesser  velocity 
down  to  zero  velocity.  (The  positive  or  negative  sign  of 
the  velocity  is  here  irrelevant.) 

This  principle  of  suction  by  a  current  of  high  velocity  is 
rarely  thought  of ;  yet  it  is  much  used  by  those  who  do  not 
think  of  it.  Many  are  the  various  sprayers  for  perfumes  or 
medicated  substances.  The  farmer  sprays  in  essentially  the 
same  manner  his  potato  plants,  cabbages,  orchard  trees,  and 
so  forth.  The  attracting  current  is  in  these  cases  a  current 
of  air.  The  physicist  in  his  laboratory  exhausts  the  air 
from  a  glass  bell,  the  chemist  from  the  space  under  a  filter 
by  means  of  a  current  of  water  served  by  the  ordinary 
water  supply  system.  The  city  dweller  often  by  such  a 
current  of  water  pumps  the  river  water  from  his  flooded 
basement.  In  all  these  cases  a  current  of  small  or  zero 
velocity  is  attracted  by  a  current  of  greater  velocity,  with 
which,  of  course,  it  must  be  somehow  in  contact. 


INATTENTION 


105 


One  can  demonstrate  this  principle  of  the  jet  pump  in  a 
vSpecial  form  in  which  its  analogy  to  the  nervous  function 
under  consideration  is  clearly  brought  out.  Our  figure  shows 
the  simple  apparatus  needed.  Two  parallel  glass  tubes 
lead,  one  from  the  water  supply  system,  W,  the  other  from 
a  supply  of  ink,  I,  that  is,  colored  water.  Both  tubes  dip 
into  the  jar  or  other  reception  tank,  J,  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  air  bubbles  from  entering  the  glass  tubes.  The 
tubes  communicate  with  each  other  thru  another  tube  be- 
tween S,  the  suction  point,  and  D,  the  deflection  point. 

By  means  of  the  cocks  at  W  and  I  the  relative  rate  of 
flow  between  W  and  J  and  between  I  and  J  can  easily  be 
so  adjusted  that  the  communicating  tube  fills  with  ink  up 


^ 


DEFLECTION     OF    A     HYDRAULCO 
CURRENT. 


to  the  middle  between  S  and  D,  and  with  water  down  to 
this  middle  point ;  and  that  an  undisturbed  current  of  clear 
water  flows  from  W  to  J,  and  an  undisturbed  current  of 
red  ink  from  I  to  J.  Now  turn  the  cock  W  so  that  the  flow 
of  water  increases  slightly, — and  you  see  the  ink  rise  in  DS 
and  give  a  rose  color  to  the  water  from  S  to  J.  But  the 
color  of  the  ink  from  D  down  to  J  is  still  the  same. 

Now  turn  the  cock  W  a  little  further  in  the  same  way, — 
and  all  the  ink  coming  from  I  turns  at  D  abruptly  up  to  S 
where  it  joins  the  water.  No  ink  at  all  passes  now  from  D  to 
the  left.  This  can  be  made  very  obvious  by  letting  some  of 


106  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHEE-ONE 

the  water  from  the  jar  be  sucked  up  as  far  as  D.  Then  one 
sees  red  ink  flowing  from  I  to  D  and  from  D  to  S  ;  but  from 
D  to  the  left,  where  it  formerly  went,  one  sees  water  stand- 
ing still.  The  experiment  in  spite,  or  perhaps  because,  of 
its  simplicity  is  apt  to  cause  a  great  deal  of  astonishment  to 
those  who  never  before  observed  anything  like  it. 

If  we  compare  Uexkuell's  worm  with  this  experiment, 
we  find  that  the  conditions  are  the  same.  The  current  from 
H  to  L  in  the  worm  corresponds  to  the  ink  current  from  D 
to  J.  The  current  from  V  to  R  in  the  worm  corresponds 
to  the  water  current  from  S  to  J.  The  conductive  tissue 
between  H  and  R  in  the  worm  corresponds  to  the  tube  be- 
tween D  and  S.  In  the  worm,  R  is  the  suction  point  (S 
in  the  tubing)  and  H  the  deflection  point  (D  in  the  tubing). 
All  of  the  nervous  current  which  tends  to  go  from  H  to 
L  is  deflected  in  the  direction  HR ;  none  of  it  is  any  longer 
permitted  to  pass  out  at  L. 

We  recall  now  the  case  of  the  competition  between  the 
monkey  and  the  professor.  Each  one  causes  a  nervous 
current  in  the  student  sitting  at  their  feet.  For  reasons 
which  we  need  not  discuss  here  the  current  caused  by  the 
monkey  is  the  stronger  current, — or  we  assume  it  to  be  the 
stronger  current.  Then  the  current  caused  by  the  professor 
is  deflected  from  the  course  leading  to  its  proper  outlet,  to 
the  motor  point  corresponding,  reflexly,  to  the  sensory  point 
stimulated.  The  student  does  not  react  to  both  the  monkey 
and  the  professor, — strongly  to  the  former,  a  little  less 
to  the  latter.  He  may  not  even  react  to  both  the  monkey 
and  the  professor, — vigorously  to  the  former  and  faintly  to 
the  latter.  He  most  probably  reacts  exclusively  to  the 
monkey.  Attention,  then,  is  deflection — partial  or  total — 
of  a  nervous  current  by  another  and  stronger  nervous  cur- 
rent. 


INATTENTION  107 

Now  the  question  may  be  asked  if  nervous  currents  are 
currents  of  a  material  substance,  comparable — at  least  by 
not  too  remote  an  analogy — to  currents  of  fluids  as  we 
study  them  in  mechanics.  An  excitation  is  undoubtedly  a 
chemical  substance  which  might  be  taken  in  a  spoon,  if 
such  enormous  quantities  of  it  as  a  spoonful  could  be 
separated  and  collected. 

Let  us  use  this  opportunity  to  tell  briefly  what  physical 
processes  have  actually  been  found  by  the  neurologists  to  go 
on  in  the  nervous  conductors.  Whenever  anything  of  the 
nature  of  an  excitation  occurs  in  a  neuron,  an  electrical 
phenomenon  is  observed.  But  it  is  generally  admitted  that 
this  electrical  phenomenon  is  not  the  excitation  itself.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  an  electrical  insulation  surrounding  a 
neuron,  which  would  enable  an  electrical  current  to  pass 
along  a  neuron.  And  further,  the  velocity  with  which  the 
excitation  is  conducted  is  almost  infinitely  small  when  com- 
pared with  the  velocity  of  electricity  in  its  conductor.  Dur- 
ing the  time  a  nervous  excitation  is  conducted  one  way  and 
back  through  an  elephant  or  other  large  animal,  electricity 
can  circle  the  globe.  The  electrical  phenomenon  must  be, 
therefore,  a  purely  accidental  accompaniment  of  the  con- 
duction of  an  excitation. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  conduction  of  the  excita- 
tion is  a  process  of  a  chemical  nature.  The  substance  of  a 
neuron,  consisting  of  highly  unstable  organic  compounds, 
must  be  well  adapted  to  the  conduction  of  chemical  changes. 
It  is  also  well  known  that  the  conduction  of  chemical  changes 
frequently  involves,  as  a  by-product,  so  to  speak,  electrical 
phenomena.  Indeed  these  electrical  phenomena  accom- 
panying the  conduction  of  chemical  changes  have  been  used 
technically  and  have  become  of  the  greatest  industrial  im- 
portance in  the  so-called  accumulators  or  electrical  storage 
batteries. 


108  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE 

An  accumulator  is  essentially  a  conducting  fluid  on  the 
sides  of  which  there  are  two  related,  yet  different  chemical 
substances,  most  commonly  lead  compounds.  One  of  these 
substances  has  a  tendency  to  take  up  a  certain  more  elemen- 
tary substance;  the  other  has  a  tendency  to  give  off  this 
same  elementary  substance.  The  same  elementary  sub- 
stance is  one  of  the  components  of  the  conducting  fluid. 
What  happens  is  this :  A  stream  of  substance  flows — or, 
whatever  it  may  actually  do,  is  imagined  to  flow — from  one 
end  of  the  conductor  to  the  other,  and  this  flow,  the  wander- 
ing of  molecules  or  ions,  as  it  is  usually  called,  is  accom- 
panied by  an  electrical  phenomenon.  We  are  probably 
justified  in  regarding  the  conduction  of  an  excitation  through 
a  neuron  as,  not  identical  with,  but  at  least  analogous  to  the 
wandering  of  ions  through  the  conducting  fluid — the  elec- 
trolyte, to  use  the  technical  term — of  a  storage  battery. 

In  the  storage  battery  the  electrical  current  is  the  thing 
we  want,  and  the  stream  of  ions  is  a  mere  by-product, 
hardly  thought  of  by  most  people  who  use  storage  bat- 
teries. In  the  industrial  process  of  electroplating  the  elec- 
trical current  is  the  mere  means  without  which  we  cannot 
work ;  but  the  stream  of  ions  is  the  real  end.  We  let  the 
molecules  of  a  gold  salt,  or  silver  salt,  or  nickel  salt,  wander 
under  the  push  of  the  electrical  current  and  carry  the  gold 
or  other  metal  and  distribute  it  over  the  thing  to  be  plated. 
Thus  in  the  industries  we  are  sometimes  more  interested  in 
the  electrical  current,  sometimes  more  in  the  chemical  cur- 
rent. In  the  function  of  the  nervous  system  we  must  re- 
gard the  chemical  current  as  of   fundamental  importance. 

A  few  rather  technical  remarks  should  be  made  here, 
just  in  order  to  avoid  misunderstandings.  In  any  fluid,  at 
the  moment  when  motion  begins,  a  relief  of  tension  passes 
thru  the  fluid.    This  tension  "wave"  has  a  definite  velocity. 


INATTENTION  109 

In  the  air  we  give  the  velocity  of  a  tension  wave  the  name 
of  "the  velocity  of  sound."  The  equivalent  (or  analogy) 
in  nervous  conduction  of  this  velocity  measures  probably  in 
the  neighborhood  of  a  hundred  feet  per  second.  It  has  no 
relation  whatever  to  the  hydraulic  velocity  difference  of 
which  we  spoke  as  being  responsible  for  the  deflection  of 
currents. 

Further,  the  velocity  with  which  an  individual  ion  wanders 
thru  its  path,  separating  itself  from  one  molecule  and  enter- 
ing another,  is  an  entirely  different  thing.  That  velocity 
is  probably  very  small.  Whatever  it  may  measure,  it  has 
no  relation,  either,  to  the  hydraulic  velocity  difference  re- 
sponsible for  the  deflection  of  currents. 

But  the  "rate  of  flow"  of  the  chemical  substances,  if  it 
\fere  measurable,  would  unquestionably  prove  to  be  the 
equivalent  of  the  "velocity"  on  which  the  deflection  effect 
in  the  nervous  system  depends.  The  rate  of  flow  in  the 
student's  nervous  system  caused  by  the  monkey  in  our  ex- 
ample is  greater  than  the  rate  of  flow  caused  by  the  algebra 
professor. 

From  one  misunderstandable  term,  that  of  "velocity,"  we 
must  unfortunately  turn  to  another  one,  that  of  "inhibition," 
before  we  can  profitably  proceed  with  the  Psychology  of 
the  Other-One.  The  negative  aspect  of  the  "attention" 
process  might  well  be  called  "inhibition"  if  this  term  did 
not  so  easily  lead  to  confusion  on  account  of  being  used  by 
the  physiologists  in  a  special  and  different  sense.  When  we 
observe  that  the  Other-One  reacts  to  the  monkey,  but  does 
not  react  to  the  algebra  professor,  we  may  feel  inclined  to 
say  that  his  reactions  to  the  professor  "are  inhibited."  But 
the  physiologists  do  not  mean  that  by  inhibition. 

They  mean  the  fact  that  in  certain  cases  a  nervous  cur- 
rent causes,  positively,   relaxation  of   a  muscle   and  thus 


110  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE    OTHER-ONE 

counteracts  the  effect  of  another  nervous  current  tending 
to  cause  in  the  same  muscle  contraction.  It  is  a  case  of 
"algebraic  addition."  The  physiologists  speak  of  "in- 
hibitory nerves"  when  they  refer  to  nerves  which  bring 
about  the  effect  of  muscular  relaxation.  Since  in  the  func- 
tion of  the  inhibitory  nerves  we  have  addition  and  a  re- 
sultant, not  competition  and  a  selection,  it  is  better  to  leave 
the  term  "inhibition"  altogether  to  the  physiologists  and  use 
in  psychology  with  reference  to  "attention"  phenomena  ex- 
clusively the  term  "deflection." 

In  life  situations  in  which  deflection  is  most  conspicuous 
we  usually  say  that  the  Other-One  or  an  animal  does  some- 
thing "instinctively."  The  student  "instinctively"  reacts  to 
the  monkey  instead  of  to  the  professor.  The  boy  "instinc- 
tively" continues  to  play  ball  instead  of  responding  to  his 
mother's  dinner  bell.  The  broody  hen  "instinctively"  sits 
on  her  eggs  instead  of  scratching  in  the  dirt.  The  bird 
"instinctively"  builds  a  nest  instead  of  taking  a  pleasure 
excursion  over  the  landscape  with  a  song  obbligato.  We 
can  without  much  difficulty  represent  "instinctive  activities" 
by  an  architectural  design  of  a  nervous  system.  First  let  us 
see  more  delinitely  what  the  requirements  are  with  which 
the  architect  has  to  comply. 

In  instinctive  activities,  that  is,  in  activities  which  the 
usage  of  language  thus  designates,  we  rarely,  if  ever,  can 
speak  of  a  local  response.  It  is  always  a  case  of  concerted 
action.  If  our  interpretation  here  of  the  spirit  of  the 
language  is  correct,  if  "instinct"  implies  also  deflection,  we 
have  a  combination  of  deflection  with  concertedness. 

The  purpose  of  a  graph  is  always  that  of  aiding  our 
grasp,  our  memory.  Let  it  serve  this  purpose  here.  For 
the  graphical  representation  of  an  instinctive  activity  in 
the  architectural  design  of  a  nervous  system  we  probably 


INATTENTION  111 

choose  best  the  activity  of  an  animal.  In  general,  analysing 
and  simplifying  a  complex  event  is  easier  there  than  in 
human  life.  We  shall  draw  an  architectural  design  for  a 
bird's  instinctive  activity  of  nest  building.  For  simplicity's 
sake  we  regard  the  concerted  action  as  being  nothing  but 
simultaneous  action  of  two  motor  points,  the  wings  in  flying 
and  the  bill  in  picking  up,  holding  and  dropping  the  building 
material. 

We  restrict  our  discussion  to  the  nest  building  activity 
of  the  female  bird.  Then  we  may  assume  for  the  drawing 
of  our  figure  that  one  specific  excitation  (and  no  others, 
affecting  also  the  male)  is  responsible  for  the  concertedness 
of  the  actions  of  the  bill  and  the  wings.  There  must  be  a 
place  ready  to  receive  the  eggs  and  capable  of  sheltering 
them.  The  nest  must  be  built  in  advance  of  laying.  It 
must  be  built  (and  is  built  only)  when  eggs  are  growing  in 
the  ovaries.  We  must  assume  that  the  growth  processes 
in  the  ovaries  act  on  a  special  sense  organ  as  a  stimulus. 
The  resulting  excitation  we  call  the  "specific  excitation"  of 
the  instinctive  activity  of  nest  building. 

In  our  figure,  S^  represents  the  sensory  point  of  the 
specific  excitation.  It  is  located  probably  in  the  ovaries 
themselves.  The  motor  point  corresponding  and  forming 
a  reflex  has  not  been  given  a  mark  in  the  figure  because  it 
does  not  concern  us  here.  Only  the  absolutely  essential 
points  have  been  marked  with  letters.  However,  it  might 
be  suggested  that  it  would  represent  the  muscle  fibers  in 
the  arteries  supplying  the  ovaries,  and  that  this  reflex 
would  regulate  the  blood  supply  so  as  to  be  commensurate 
to  the  necessities  of  the  growth  of  the  eggs. 

The  motor  points  M^^  and  M^  represent  the  muscles  of 
the  bill  and  the  flying  apparatus,  which  have  to  act  in  con- 
cert.    The  nerve  center  S^M^  unites  them.     The  sensory 


112 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


points  corresponding  to  these  motor  points  do  not  concern 
us  here  and  therefore  are  left  unmarked  in  the  figure.  It 
might  be  suggested,  however,  that  the  reflexes  of  the  bill 
and  the  wings  depend  on  visual  stimuli,  the  sight  of  the 
building  material  and  the  sight  of  the  branch  of  the  tree  or 
shrub  chosen  as  site  of  the  nest. 

The  sensory  point  S^j  represents  all  those  innumerable 
sensory  points  whose  excitations  would  better  be  deflected 
if  nest  building  is  to  proceed  efficiently,  that  is,  properly 


Mk  He  Sd 

OVERFLOW  AND   DEFLECTION   IN  INSTINCTIVE   ACTIVITY. 
Sa — ovaries  1 

Mb — bill    muscles  !-of  a  bird. 
Mc — wing  muscles  J 
Sd — Irrelevant    stimulations 


and  promptly.  What  the  responses  are,  in  life's  ordinary 
language,  called,  does  not  matter.  Any  and  all  responses 
inessential  or  irrelevant  to  nest  building  ought  to  be  pre- 
vented. Since  we  do  not  name  them,  the  corresponding 
motor  point  has  been  left  unmarked. 

Summing  up:  the  specific  excitation,  which  comes  from 
S  ,  performs  two  services,  that  of  insuring  by  way  of  the 
center  S'M  Hhe  concertedness  of  the  actions  at  M^  and  M^ 


INATTENTION  113 

and  that  of  deflecting  by  way  of  the  center  S*  M^all  cur- 
rents coming  from  the  bulk  of  the  sense  organs,  S^. 

This  leaves  still  one  question.  Why  must  the  center  over 
which  the  specific  excitation  deflects  other  excitations  be 
higher  than  the  center  over  which  it  reaches  the  motor  points 
acting  in  concert  ?  Answer :  otherwise  it  would  deflect  also 
the  currents  of  the  concerted  action,  and  there  would  be  no 
nest  building. 

The  currents  of  the  concerted  action  must  not  be  im- 
paired, but  enhanced.  In  order  to  express  this  in  theoretical 
terms,  it  seems  necessary  to  introduce  the  conception  of 
"overflow." 

This  is  a  very  abstract  statement,  in  this  paragraph ;  but 
it  must  be  made.  In  electrical  conductors  the  resistance 
rises  with  an  increase  of  the  flux,  because  the  temperature 
rises  with  the  flux  unless  there  is  special  cooling.  In  ner- 
vous currents  there  is  not  probably  any  need  of  referring 
to  any  rise  in  temperature.  But  suppose  that,  just  the  same, 
the  resistance  is  not  constant,  but  rises  with  the  flux;  or, 
as  we  may  say,  the  conductivity  diminishes  with  an  increase 
of  the  flux.  Suppose  further  that-  the  higher  a  nerve  center, 
the  more  rapidly  the  conductivity  of  a  conductor  diminishes 
with  the  flux  increase.  Suppose  that  thus  in  the  highest 
centers  the  conductivity  is  small  quite  out  of  proportion  to 
the  increase  of  the  flux  in  any  theoretically  considered 
problem. 

Then  the  highest  centers  will  tend  not  to  carry  their  share 
if  there  are  any  lower  centers  still  available.  This  prin- 
ciple may  popularly  be  called  "overflow."  Its  assumption 
seems  unavoidable,  absolutely  demanded  by  the  facts.  (Of 
course,  this  statement  is  of  the  nature  of  a  revision  of  the 
computation  which  we  made  in  the  preceding  chapter  under 
the  simplest  possible  theoretical  assumptions.) 


114  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE. 

In  our  figure  the  dividing  level  between  overflow  and  de- 
flection is  supposed  to  lie  between  the  third  and  the  fourth 
center.  The  overflow  of  the  specific  excitation  does  not 
reach  higher  than  the  third  center.  From  the  fourth  center 
on,  the  deflection  can  then  become  effective. 

Because  of  the  necessary  distinction  between  the  effects 
of  overflow  and  deflection,  in  any  architectural  design  of 
the  nervous  system  representing  both  overflow  and  deflec- 
tion, the  highest  overflow  center  must  be  lower  than  the 
lowest  deflection  center. 

It  is  then,  of  course,  the  Creator's  business  to  make  the 
difference  in  level  between  the  highest  overflow  center  and 
the  lowest  deflection  center  for  each  so-called  "instinct" 
large  enough, — safe  for  the  proper  execution  of  the  per- 
formance. There  are  numerous  observations,  which  we 
need  not  repeat  here,  of  individual  aberrations  or  perversi- 
ties in  the  instinctive  activities  of  animals  as  well  as  in  those 
of  mankind.  There  does  not  always  seem  to  be  a  proper 
margin  of  safety  in  the  construction  of  individual  nervous 
systems. 

Even  a  whole  species  of  animals  may  become  perverse. 
For  example,  the  European  cuckoo  does  not  build  a  nest. 
The  bird  lays  her  eggs  in  the  nests  of  other  birds,  generally 
much  smaller,  with  the  well  known  disastrous  consequences 
for  the  hosts.    But  this  leads  us  too  far. 

He  who  thinks  for  the  first  time  of  the  deflection,  in  the 
nervous  system,  of  a  current  by  another  current,  may  be 
more  struck  by  the  effect  which  to  some  extent  this  has  on 
the  deflecting,  than  by  the  effect  which  it  has  on  the  deflec- 
ted, current.  Why !  Is  not  the  deflecting  current  strength- 
ened thereby? 

At  the  first  moment  this  may  seem  surprising.  Do  we 
pay,  to  what  we  are  occupied  with,  more  attention  on  account 


INATTENTION.  115 

of  the  little  noises  and  the  diffusedly  lighted  objects  which 
usually  surround  us  during  our  work.  Then  it  ought  to  be 
advantageous  for  office  clerks  to  typewrite  their  letters  in 
an  office  noisy  from  the  clicks  of  other  machines,  for  masons 
to  lay  their  bricks  while  a  music  band  plays  lively  tunes  in 
the  neighborhood,  for  debaters  to  debate  in  a  well  illuminated 
auditorium  where  innumerable  faces  are  in  sight,  for 
athletic  teams  to  play  their  games  in  the  noise  and  sunlight 
of  the  stadium.  And  indeed  it  is.  Theory  and  practice 
agree.  Sights  and  noises,  to  the  extent  that  we  pay  no 
attention  to  them,  far  from  being  merely  indifferent,  are 
positively  helpful. 

Careful  experiments  have  been  made  by  psychologists 
on  the  effect  of  exclusion  of  the  ordinary,  diffused,  noises 
of  the  day,  and  exclusion  of  the  ordinary  multiplicity  of 
lights  and  sights,  on  ordinary  school  work.  Even  in  the 
school  room  such  exclusion  of  all  but  the  adequate  stimuli 
diminishes  the  normal  rate  of  activity  of  the  school  children 
to  the  detriment  of  their  scholarly  progress. 

There  is  no  contradiction  in  the  fact  that  the  advanced 
scholar — let  us  think  of  Faust,  the  magician,  in  the  theater 
scene — works  better  in  a  silent  and  almost  dark  room,  or 
that  midnight  oil  seems  to  help  us  in  preparing  for  an 
examination.  The  advanced  scholar,  the  thinker,  for  his 
progress  needs  to  be,  not  only  attentive,  but  also  absent- 
minded,  preoccupied.  And  noise  and  light  would  inter- 
fere with  his  preoccupation.  But  for  the  attention  of 
ordinary  busy  folk  the  reduction  of  light  and  noise  is  in- 
deed harmful.  They  are  not  preoccupied.  And  therefore 
they  are  exposed  to  the  danger  of  a  reduced  rate  of  activity ; 
to  use  a  more  striking  term,  to  the  danger  of  getting  into 
a  condition  of  boredom,  sleepiness.  That  means  the  end 
of  fruitful  occupation.     Every  teacher  knows  it.     A  little 


116  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE 

noise  and  a  little  glitter  on  the  side  do  not  distract,  but 
help. 

The  college  student  who  objects  to  a  ray  of  sunshine 
coming  thru  the  class  room  window  to  hit  his  nose-  and  who 
lowers  the  shade,  may  honestly  think  that  he  is  preparing 
himself  for  listening  free  from  annoyance.  Actually  he  is 
preparing  himselT  for  sleeping  more  soundly. 

To  take  an  extreme  example,  a  very  feeble-minded  per- 
son, an  idiot,  can  be  easily  put  to  sleep  by  merely  placing 
him  alone  in  a  noiseless  and  fairly  dark  room. 

We  have  used  here  this  term  "attention"  only  because  it  is 
so  indispensable  in  the  affairs  of  life  when  we  wish  to  refer 
to  "being  busy"  or  "being  ready  for  business."  We  do  not 
yield  to  the  temptation  of  regarding  it  as  more  than  a  con- 
ventional phrase  which  really  has  three  different  meanings. 
It  is  not  a  power  or  ability  in  any  sense.  Substitute  for 
it  "inattention."  Then  we  can  restate  even  more  easily  that 
the  Other-One  is  called  attentive  or  inattentive  in  the  foUow- 
irig  three — scientifically  quite  diiferent^ — senses. 

1.  Deflection. — The  school  boy  who  plays  with  a  knife 
under  his  desk  is  called  inattentive  by  his  teacher.  The 
teacher  knows  that  he  is  very  attentive — to  his  knife.  The 
wrong  kind  of  attention,  in  the  case  of  deflection,  is  from 
the  social  (educational)  point  of  view  inattention.  He  does 
not  do  his  duty. 

The  psychologist  speaks  of  attention,  for  there  is  a 
strong  nervous  flux.    The  boy  is  very  active. 

2.  Preoccupation. — The  school  boy  who  writes  down  his 
birthday  presents,  instead  of  the  copy  given  him  by  his 
writing  teacher,  is  from  the  social  (educational)  point  of 
view  inattentive.     He  fails  in  his  social  duty  of  action. 

From  the  psychologist's  point  of  view  he  is  neither  atten- 
tive nor  inattentive.  That  there  is  a  certain  stimulus  to 
which  he  does  not  properly  react,  is  to  the  psychologist  an 


INATTENTION  117 

accident.  There  are  many  other  such  stimuli.  Why  em- 
phasize that  one  ?  The  boy  is  somewhat  active,  but  "absent- 
mindedly"  active.     He  is  preoccupied, 

3.  Sleepiness. — The  school  boy  whose  eyelids  droop  and 
whose  head  falls  upon  his  chest  is  from  the  social  (educa- 
tional) point  of  view  inattentive.    He  does  not  do  his  duty. 

The  psychologist,  too,  calls  him  inattentive,  for  there  is 
hardly  any  nervous  flux.     He  is  very  inactive. 

That  these  shades  of  meaning,  poorly  understood,  may 
have  quite  serious  consequences  in  our  social  life,  is  ob- 
vious. The  present  writer  recalls  a  case  from  his  school 
days.  One  of  his  teachers,  standing  before  the  window, 
asked  him  suddenly  if  he  was  not  inattentive.  He  was  still 
looking  at  the  blackboard,  on  which  the  teacher,  two  minutes 
ago,  had  written  an  important  equation.  He  replied,  quite 
honestly,  that  he  was  not  inattentive.  Thereupon  the  tea- 
cher, also  quite  honestly,  called  him  a  liar.  Here  let  us 
end  the  story. 

The  cure  for  sleepiness  is  a  wakeful  environment.  The 
cure  for  preoccupation  is  a  more  vigorous  presentation  of 
the  proper  stimuli.  The  cure  for  deflection  is  a  strong  dis- 
cipline which  orders  the  deflecting  stimuli  to  be  left  at 
home.  Speaking  of  a  cure,  we  of  course  take  sleepiness, 
preoccupation  and  deflection  in  the  sense  of  evils,  in  the 
social  sense  of  inattention. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  deflection  and  preoccupa- 
tion, when  they  lead  toward  a  social  aim,  and  when,  going 
hand  in  hand,  they  lead  toward  the  same  social  aim  with 
vigor  and  consistency,  are  the  true  mark  of  genius.  There- 
fore the  highest  genius  is  a  person  of  discipline — as  all 
biographies  prove, — for  without  discipline  deflection  and 
preoccupation  would  not  go  hand  in  hand.  The  undisci- 
plined person  might  be  a  "Bohemian"  genius,  but  not  a  real 
genius. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Other-Onu  Varies  his  Mode  oe  Reaction  grad- 
ually OR  suddenly:  He  Learns  and  Wills. 

A  little  girl  had  been  fortunate  enough  never  to  have  re- 
ceived any  candy  nor  to  have  seen  anybody  eat  candy.  One 
afternoon  a  woman  friend  called  on  her  mother  and,  just 
before  leaving,  gave  the  girl  a  piece  of  somewhat  soft  and 
sticky  candy.  When  she  had  left,  the  little  girl  dropped 
the  candy  on  the  fire  place  and  accompanied  her  action  by 
the  remark  addressed  to  her  mother:  "That  woman  gave 
me  dirt." 

A  few  years  later  that  same  girl  frequently  boiled  her 
own  candy,  pulled  it,  and  ate  it  lustily.  What  had  hap- 
pened ? 

When  she  dropped  the  candy  the  woman  gave  her,  a 
reflex  functioned.  A  touch  stimulus  of  a  thing  rather  soft 
and  sticky  brings  about  a  reflex  stretching  of  the  fingers, 
giving  the  candy  a  chance  to  follow  the  law  of  gravitation, 
and  also  a  stretching  of  the  arm,  giving  the  thing  a  positive 
aid  on  its  way  downward.  But  there  came  a  time  in  later 
years  when  an  injudicious  person,  on  a  similar  occasion, 
took  the  candy  out  of  the  girl's  fingers,  before  it  had  time 
to  fall  on  the  ground,  and  put  it  in  the  girl's  mouth.  It 
quickly  began  to  dissolve  and  to  act  as  a  taste  stimulus, 
and  the  reflex  action  resulting  was  a  bending  of  many  out- 
lying "limbs"  such  as  the  fingers,  arms,  lips,  tongue.  And 
the  candy,  instead  of  falling  on  the  ground,  was  pushed 
down  the  esophagus. 

After  that,  when  a  piece  of  candy  touched  the  girl's 
fingers,  the  fingers  bent  and  held  it,  the  arm  bent  and  car- 
ried it  toward  the  mouth,  the  lips  bent  and  pushed  it  in, 

(118) 


CONDITIONED   REFLEXES  119 

and  the  tongue  bent  and  pushed  it  down  the  esophagus. 
The  reflex  "taste-bending"  had  been  mixed  up  with  the 
reflex  "touch-stretching."  Something  new  had  resulted, 
based  on  the  nervous  function  "touch-bending."  This  ner- 
vous function,  starting  from  a  soft,  sticky  touch  and  re- 
sulting in  a  bending  of  limbs,  is  not  a  reflex.  If  it  is  not 
a  reflex,  what  is  it? 

There  are  some  psychologists  who  like  to  call  something 
like  our  "touch-bending"  a  conditioned  reflex.  "Bending" 
occurs  after  "taste"  as  a  reflex  movement  unconditionally ; 
but  after  "touch"  it  occurs  only  "under  condition"  that  the 
"taste-bending"  reflex  has  been  appealed  to. 

Inasmuch  as  "conditioned  reflex"  is  a  clumsy  term  and 
could  be  tolerated  only  if  we  had  no  better  term,  we  shall 
not  use  it.  No  serious  objection  can  be  raised  against  the 
old-fashioned  term  "habit."  Literally  habit  means  a  gar- 
ment ;  then  also  a  form  of  life,  a  mode  of  conduct,  not 
naturally  grown  out  from  the  body,  but  put  on  it  from 
without,  so  to  speak.  As  in  our  example,  habit  has  always 
in  the  usage  of  language  signified  the  exchange  of  com- 
ponents among  two  stimulus-reaction  functions,  except  to 
loose  thinkers  to  whom  it  may  never  have  meant  anything 
definite.  If  any  student  has  the  habit  of  thinking  of  a 
habit  of  conduct  as  a  sheer  mystery,  then  he  should  be  ad- 
vised to  clarify  his  thought  by  using  the  term  "conditioned 
reflex,"  which  would  constantly  remind  him  of  the  fact 
that  no  habit  can  be  put  on  an  animal  except  one  whose 
sense  function  and  motor  function  have  already,  in  other 
combinations,  been  given  to  the  animal  by  Nature.  He 
who  realizes  this  fact  that  "habits"  cannot  be  created  out 
of  nothing,  but  only  out  of  "reflexes,"  need  not  use  the  in- 
conveniently long  expression  "conditioned  reflexes." 

Purely  logically,  we  should  expect  three  classes  of  habits, 
because  two  reflexes  can  be  thought  of  as  becoming  so  re- 


120  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

lated  that  the  motor  function  of  one  either  (1)  replaces 
the  motor  function  of  the  other,  or  (2)  is  added  to  the 
motor  function  of  the  other,  or  (3)  is  subtracted  from  it. 

As  a  typical  example  of  the  third  class  can  serve  any 
graceful  action  which  develops  out  of  an  awkward  action. 
An  action  is  called  awkward  when  it  contains  superfluous 
muscular  responses.  The  young  scholar,  or  the  illiterate 
person  who  late  in  life  attempts  to  write,  writes,  so  to  speak, 
with  his  arms,  his  legs,  and  even  his  head, — not  to  mention 
the  subdivisions  of  these  limbs,  the  tongue,  for  example, 
which  can  sometimes  be  observed  to  "try  to  help." 

Or,  a  person  not  accustomed  to  appear  before  audiences, 
walks  awkwardly  across  the  stage.  Making  superfluous 
muscular  responses,  as  common  in  babyhood,  he  "stumbles 
over  his  own  feet." 

When  the  Other-One,  in  his  first  attempts  at  performing 
an  action  as  difficult  as  writing  or  walking,  makes  more 
movements  than  are  necessary,  we  call  him  awkward.  After 
he  has  "learned"  to  omit  the  unnecessary  movements,  after 
they  have  been  subtracted  from  the  response,  we  either  say 
simply  that  he  "does"  the  thing,  that  he  writes,  that  he 
walks,  and  so  forth,  or  we  say,  in  certain  situations  of 
life,  that  he  does  the  thing  "gracefully." 

The  variation  of  the  total  nervous  path  might  be  given  a 
special  name  in  this  case ;  perhaps  the  name  of  "motor  con- 
densation." The  giving  of  the  name  serves  no  other  pur- 
pose than  that  of  pointing  out  that  there  lies  here  a  great 
field  for  future  research.  If  we  call  it  "condensation,"  we 
have  in  mind  the  fact  that  the  nervous  path,  instead  of 
spreading  out  while  it  proceeds  to  the  motor  outlets  into 
many  channels  like  a  river  with  "a  thousand  islands,"  is 
condensed  into  one  definite  narrow  location.  In  what  man- 
ner such  a  "motor  condensation"  develops  in  the  Other- 
One's  nervous  system,  is  as  yet  only  a  problem,  not  a  known 
fact. 


KERVOUS     (XVISTDENSATION  121 

The  second  class  of  learning  consists,  we  said,  in  the 
motor  function  of  one  reflex  being  added  to  the  motor 
function  of  another.  Innumerable  examples  could  be  given 
from  the  Other-One's  life.  Sometimes  a  negative  example 
illustrates  most  strikingly.  A  common  deficiency  of  the 
Other-One,  in  not  having  learned  to  add  a  certain  muscular 
action,  is  his  often  observed  stooping,  the  failure  of  the 
muscles  throwing  his  shoulders  back  and  keeping  his  head 
erect  while  he  is  walking  or  standing  or  sitting  engaged  in 
some  special  work. 

Originally,  in  such  a  case  of  learning,  the  stimulation 
must  of  course  be  complex  in  order  to  make  the  response 
include  the  feature  to  be  added.  For  example,  we  may 
in  every  situation  have  to  "remind"  the  Other-One  that  he 
must  straighten  himself.  Later  the  same  complex  response 
is  called  out  by  a  simplified  stimulation.  The  reminder  in 
our  example  is  left  ofif.  The  nervous  activity  then  becomes 
similar  to  an  "instinctive"  activity,  for  a  complex  reaction 
in  response  to  a  simple  stimulation  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
characteristic  of  an  instinct.  In  order  to  have  a  brief  term 
for  this  kind  of  a  variation  of  the  nervous  path,  let  us  call 
it  "sensory  condensation,"  thus  referring  to  the  fact  that 
at  the  sensory  end  of  the  system  of  nervous  conductors  the 
flux  (when  represented  reversely  in  a  diagram)  no  longer 
looks  like  spreading  broadly,  but  like  being  condensed  in 
a  narrow  channel. 

An  example,  rather  complex  in  all  its  aspects,  but  very 
familiar  and  therefore  well  illustrating  our  case,  is  the  fol- 
lowing. In  playing  a  certain  piece  of  music  on  the  piano, 
at  a  particular  place  in  the  music  each  one  of  several  fing- 
ers has  to  perform  a  definite  movement, — what  movement, 
is  indicated  by  as  many  notes  as  there  are  fingers  to  move. 
The  beginner,  in  order  to  strike  the  correct  chord,  looks  at 
every  note.     But  after  some  time  of  practice,  we  observe 


122  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEK-ONE 

that  he  plays  exactly  the  same  complicated  chord  even  when 
some  of  the  notes,  without  his  knowledge,  have  been  erased 
or  changed  by  us.  Obviously  these  notes  are  no  longer 
needed  for  the  response,  and  a  simpler  stimulation  now 
brings  about  the  same  complex  motor  response. 

Typewriting,  reading,  proofreading,  weaving,  attending 
to  any  machine, — any  kind  of  skillful  activity  can  illustrate 
this  same  kind  of  variation  of  the  nervous  path.  The  com- 
plex activity  is  ultimately  called  forth  by  a  part  of  the 
original  stimulation ;  sometimes  to  the  detriment  of  the 
subject,  as  when  a  proofreader  overlooks  a  typographical 
error,  reading  the  whole  word  altho  not  all  of  the  word 
is  there  to  act  on  his  eyes. 

The  manner  in  which  all  this  develops  in  the  nervous 
system  is  no  better  known  in  the  case  of  sensory  condensa- 
tion than  in  the  case  of  motor  condensation.  Here  we  have 
at  present  some  of  the  greatest  and  most  pressing  research 
problems  of  psychology. 

Going  back  now  to  the  first  of  those  classes  of  habits 
which  we  distinguished  on  purely  logical  grounds,  we  should 
give  further  examples  where  the  motor  function  of  one 
reflex  replaces  the  motor  function  of  another.  We  should 
think  of  further  examples  for  the  following  reason  if  for 
no  other.  Students  sometimes  believe — and  even  psycholo- 
gists have  believed — that  the  relation  of  "antagonistic  mus- 
cles" plays  a  role  in  the  learning  process.  It  is  true  that 
a  habit  often  consists  in  replacing  a  motor  function  by  that 
of  its  antagonistic  motor  function.  For  instance,  in  a 
certain  habit  of  avoiding  pain,  contraction  of  the  extensor 
muscles  of  the  right  arm  is  replaced  by  contraction  of  the 
flexor  muscles  of  the  same  arm.  But  this  is  a  fortuitous 
circumstance.  The  muscular  reactions  in  the  next  ex- 
ample are  not  antagonistic. 


HABIT  FOEMATION  123 

A  horse,  when  it  hears  the  crack  of  the  whip,  reflexly 
pricks  up  its  ears.  Soon  afterwards  the  whip  may  touch 
its  skin.  This  cutaneous  stimukis  calls  forth  a  forward 
locomotion,  a  "start."  The  start  thus  produced  is  a  reflex. 
Later  the  crack  of  the  whip  stimulating  the  ear  calls  forth 
the  forward  locomotion.     That  then  is  a  habit. 

A  baby  sees  a  candle  flame.  Reflexly  he  stretches  his 
finger  toward  the  flame.  The  heat  begins  to  act  on  the 
finger ;  and  the  arm  is  withdrawn.  Sight-stretching  is  one 
reflex ;  heat-bending  is  the  other  reflex ;  sight-bending  is 
the  habit.  The  motor  functions  are  again  antagonistic ; 
but  that  is  fortuitous.  What  is  different  in  this  case  from 
the  other  two  examples  of  "replacement"  is  the  fact  that 
here  the  two  nervous  currents  of  the  reflexes  can  hardly 
help  being  simultaneous  for  a  considerable  time.  In  the 
other  two  examples  the  currents  succeeded  each  other. 

Let  us  take  an  example  of  habit  formation  from  the 
college  recitation  room.  The  professor  pronounces  a  ques- 
tion. This  is  a  stimulus  acting  on  the  student's  ear.  The 
student  responds  by  saying  "I  don't  know."  Now,  this 
function  "sound-speech"  in  this  case  is  no  reflex.  The  nerv- 
ous functions  which  play  the  larger  role  in  the  class  room 
are  naturally  not  reflexes,  but  habits  which  have  resulted 
from  the  student's  reflexes  during  many  years  of  previous 
schooling.  But  we  can  here  regard  the  response  "I  don't 
know"  as  if  it  were  a  reflex  response.  The  manner  in  which 
habits  are  derived  from  other  habits  is  exactly  the  same  as 
that  in  which  habits  are  derived  from  reflexes. 

After  this  answer  of  the  student,  the  professor  in  the 
natural  course  of  events  produces  the  second  stimulus  by 
pronouncing  the  statement  which  makes  the  right  answer  to 
the  previous  question.  And  the  student,  if  he  is  the  right 
kind  of  student,  imitates  this  statement,  not  necessarily 
aloud,  but  by  speaking  to  himself,  or  by  writing.     The  case 


124 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


is  exactly  the  same  as  if  we  had  two  reflexes  "question- 
negative  answer"  and  "statement-positive  answer."  The 
resulting  habit  is  "question-positive  answer."  In  this  case 
the  two  original  nervous  currents  are  again  successive  as 
in  the  first  two  examples. 

In  the  case  of  a  replacement  of  one  motor  function  by 
another  it  is  as  in  the  other  two  classes  of  habits  a  pressing 
problem  of  present  and  future  research  to  know  what  really 
happens  in  the  nervous  system.  The  case  of  replacement 
of  a  motor  fimction  appears  simpler — it  is  doubtful  if  it 
actually  is  simpler — than  either  of  the  cases  of  condensation 
of  the  nervous  path.  Therefore  we  might  at  least  here 
make  a  conjecture  by  the  aid  of  a  diagram  showing  the 
two  reflexes.  If  it  does  not  fully  explain  the  formation 
of  the  habit,  at  least  it  will  suggest  an  approach  to  the 
solution  of  the  problem  to  the  student  who  wishes  to  be- 
come an  investigator.  It  will  show  him,  too,  how  much 
knowledge  of  physics,  chemistry,  and  biology  he  will  need 
for  that  purpose. 

In  the  figure  "Learning,  a  Function  of  two  Reflexes 
Combined"  let  us  see  what  neurons  conduct  the  excitation 


LEARNING,    A   FUNCTION   OF   TWO 
REFLEXES     COMBINED. 


whenever  Sb  is  alone  stimulated.  They  are,  eight  in  num- 
ber, marked  in  "broad"  lines,  partly  black,  partly  double. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  neurons  which  function  when  S, 


KESISTAITCE    CHANGES  125 

alone  is  stimulated,  are  all  marked  in  "single"  lines,  partly 
fine,  partly  black. 

Now,  it  is  quite  indispensable,  from  all  we  know  of  the 
Other-One's  life,  to  assume  that  a  flux  passing  thru  a 
neuron  reduces  its  resistance  (not  much  at  once,  but  still 
reduces  its  resistance),  and  that  this  reduction  very,  very 
gradually  disappears,  but  even  in  many  years  not  entirely. 
This  reduction  of  resistance,  that  is,  increase  of  conduc- 
tivity, is  therefore  very  different  from  that  which  we  have 
attributed  to  an  improved  contact  in  the  synapses,  and 
which  can  generally  and  normally  by  proper  methods  be 
caused  to  be  completely  gone  in  a  few  minutes.  "Preoccu- 
pation" is  something  entirely  different  from  habit,  at  least 
in  a  normal  being, — in  certain  neuroses,  abnormalities, 
which  we  shall  discuss  in  a  later  chapter,  the  distinction 
may  become  difficult.  The  reduction  of  resistance  with 
which  we  are  at  present  concerned  is  clearly  a  change  in 
the  permanent  chemical  properties  of  the  neuron. 

We  said  that  when  Sb  is  stimulated,  the  excitation  takes 
its  path  over  the  black  and  the  double  lines.  A  moment 
ago,  let  us  assume,  Sa  was  stimulated,  and  the  excitation 
took  its  path  over  the  black  and  the  fine  lines.  Therefore, 
when  the  excitation  coming  from  Sb  reduces  the  resist- 
ance in  all  the  neurons  thru  which  it  passes,  the  resistance 
of  the  neurons  drawn  in  black  lines  not  merely  begins  to 
be  reduced,  but  is  further  reduced.  In  the  total  svstem  of 
the  figure  the  neurons  drawn  in  black  lines  thus  suffer  a 
relatively  greater  increase  of  their  conductivity  than  all 
the  others  under  these  circumstances. 

This  means  an  increased  importance,  as  conductor,  of 
the  higher  center  at  the  expense  of  the  lower  nerve  centers. 
We  draw  this  conclusion  because,  without  it,  we  can  give 
no  explanation  whatsoever  of  the  learning  process.  But 
this  conclusion  is  not  self-evident.     Let  us  fully  realize  it. 


126  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

Many  are  the  assumptions  which  have  to  be  made  if  we 
want  to  demonstrate  with  mathematical  certainty  that  the 
higher  center  will  finally  have  a  lower  resistance  than  either 
of  the  low  centers.  For  example,  it  seems  necessary  to 
assume  that  the  neurons  of  higher  centers  are  inore  change- 
able under  the  influence  of  a  flux  of  given  strength  than 
the  neurons  of  lower  centers.  (This  recalls  the  two  assump- 
tions of  other  differences  between  lower  and  higher  centers 
made  in  the  preceding  chapter.)  It  counteracts  the  com- 
parative weakness  of  the  "higher"  currents,  and  the  com- 
parative strength  of  the  "lower"  currents,  at  the  start. 

We  conclude,  in  appearance  dogmatically,  but  with  the  in- 
tention of  arousing  interest  in  the  research  problems  implied, 
that  virtually  no  current  will  finally  go  over  the  lower  center. 
(If  you  will  learn  by  heart  the  tabular  statement  of  the  pro- 
cess of  habit  formation  as  you  find  it  in  the  second  demon- 
stration of  the  author's  "Manual  of  Psychology  Demonstra- 
tions," this  conclusion  will  probably  cease  to  appear  dog- 
matic to  you,  and  become  a  real  insight.)  All  zvill  now  go 
over  the  black  lines  of  the  diagram.  And  always,  in  case  of 
any  single  stimulation,  the  two  motor  points  will  receive 
equal  amounts  of  the  nervous  flux. 

( 1 )  Thus  far  we  can  already  speak  of  a  habit  established, 
a  habit  of  concertedness  of  certain  actions.  It  would  be  a 
habit  of  the  class  of  sensory  condensation.  But  it  would  not 
yet  be  a  habit  of  the  class  of  replacement  of  one  motor  func- 
tion by  another. 

(2)  But  now  assume  also  that  the  stimulation  of  one  of 
the  sensory  points  is  always  stronger  than  that  of  the  other 
reflex.  Assume  the  stimulation  of  Sb — it  makes  no  dif- 
ference here  which  point  we  choose — to  be  the  stronger 
one.  Then  the  path  I\I^b  ^h  would  suffer  a  greater  increase 
cf  conductivity  than  the  path  M^a  Ma-  Let  this  change  be 
repeated,  be  continued,  long  enough.    Finally  the  path  lead- 


HABIT  FUNCTIONING  127 

ing  from  the  higher  center  to  the  motor  point  Ma  would 
be  of  no  account  as  a  conductor.  All  the  flux  coming  down 
from  the  higher  center  would  go  to  Mb. 

Now  combine  these  two  changes :  ( 1 )  All  the  current 
from  either  sensory  point  goes  to  the  higher  center.  (2) 
All  the  current  from  the  higher  center  goes  to  Mb. 

The  passing  of  the  current  from  Sa  to  Mb  then  is  what 
we  mean  by  the  functioning  of  the  established  habit.  And 
the  three  essential  conditions  of  its  acquisition,  let  us  not 
forget,  were  these : 

I.  Neurons  must  be  capable  of  undergoing  a  lasting 
change  in  their  conductivity  in  consequence  of  a  nervous 
current  passing  thru  them. 

II.  The  period  of  time,  within  which  both  reflexes  must 
function,  is  limited.  (The  greater  the  time  interval  between 
the  two  reflex  functions,  the  weaker  the  resulting  habit.) 

III.  One  of  the  reflex  currents  must  be  stronger  than 
the  other. 

The  last  two  of  these  three  conditions  are  purely  cir- 
cumstantial. But  the  first  is  a  property  of  the  nervous  tis- 
sue essential  to  its  service  in  the  Other-One's  body.  There- 
fore we  shall  give  it  special  consideration  a  little  further 
on.  Let  us  see  first  how  the  last  two  conditions  are  realized 
in  the  sample  cases. 

The  teacher  makes  a  statement,  and  the  pupil  pronounces 
it.  This  we  regard  as  a  reflex,  altho  it  is  a  habit.  The 
teacher  asks  a  question,  and  the  pupil  responds  "I  don't 
know."  This  we  regard  as  another  reflex,  altho  it  is  a 
habit.  Usually,  however,  the  latter  reflex  or  habit  comes 
first.  Usually  the  question  precedes  the  statement.  But 
not  necessarily. 

For  example,  the  teacher  enters  the  class  and  says — first 
stimulation — "Three  times  three?"  with  the  rising  inflection 
characteristic  of  every  question.     A  little  later  the  teacher 


128  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

says — second  stimulation — "Nine !"  with  the  emphasis  char- 
acteristic of  every  statement.  We  know  perfectly  that  if 
he  says  "Three  times  three?"  today  and  "Nine!"  tomorrow, 
this  will  be  without  consequence.  But  if  he  says  "Three 
times  three?"  a  few  seconds  before — or  (less  usual)  after — 
saying  "Nine !"  it  is  likely  to  have  the  consequence  of  form- 
ing the  habit  "Three  times  three  is  nine"  or  "Nine  equals 
three  times  three." 

However,  he  must  say  "Nine"  more  emphatically.  He 
pronounces  it  with  the  falling  inflection.  If  he  pronounces 
it  merely  like  a  casual  remark,  like  something  relatively  un- 
important, like  a  mere  question,  like  "Has  anybody  a  pin?", 
instead  of  like  a  statement,  no  desired  consequence  is  likely 
to  happen.  One  current — and  this  one — must  be  stronger 
than  the  other.  If  they  were  equally  strong,  the  pupil 
would  develop  to  be  as  ready  to  say  "I  don't  know"  as  to 
say  "Nine,"  and  thus  might  say  neither.  And  that  result 
does  not  satisfy  a  teacher,  altho  it  satisfies  some  pupils, 
who  refer  to  it,  in  the  school  jargon,  by  the  ridiculous 
phrase :  "I  know  it,  but  I  can't  express  it." 

Let  us  turn  to  analysing  in  the  same  manner  the  example 
of  the  candiless  girl.  The  touch  followed  by  the  stretching 
movement  is  one  reflex.  The  taste  followed  by  the  bend- 
ing movement  is  the  other.  Sweet  taste  stimuli  were  by 
no  means  rare  in  that  girl's  life,  but  they  (that  is,  those 
which  were  powerful)  were  intentionally,  for  a  long  time, 
kept  from  occurring  in  temporal  nearness  with  a  "candy 
touch"  stimulus  (and  of  course  any  other  non-taste  "candy" 
stimuli,  sight  stimuli  especially,  which  for  simplicity's  sake 
we  leave  out  of  the  discussion).  Therefore  no  consequence 
resulted,  and  the  reflex  of  responding  to  the  touch  by  shak- 
ing off  this  sort  of  thing  was  retained. 

And  secondly,  if  the  taste  had  not  been  so  powerful,  no 
consequence  would  have  occurred  either.     It  is  a  fact  that 


CONDITIONS  OF   HABIT  FORMATION  129 

in  the  girl's  life  weak  sweet  taste  stimuli  sometimes  occurred 
together  with  touch  stimuli  of  the  kind  in  question.  Since 
they  were  weak,  no  consequence  resulted. 

As  soon  as  the  two  conditions  were  fulfilled,  and  a 
powerful  taste  was  permitted  to  accompany  the  touch,  the 
candy  eating  habit  began  to  establish  itself. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  example  of  the  horse.  The  whip 
cracks,  and  the  ear  moves.  That  is  one  reflex.  The  skin 
in  a  certain  spot  is  compressed,  and  the  legs  stretch.  That 
is  the  other  reflex.  If  the  skin  stimulus  had  been  the 
weaker  one,  the  habit  of  starting  on  hearing  the  whip  would 
not  have  been  established.  Neither  would  the  habit  have 
been  established  if  between  the  cracking  sound  and  the 
compression  on  the  skin  there  had  always  been  a  time  in- 
terval of  a  minute  or  more. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  same  habit  could  have  been — can 
at  any  time  be — established  by  applying  the  sound  to  the 
ear  and  the  pressure  to  the  skin  at  the  same  moment.  We 
shall  say  a  little  more  about  simultaneity  of  stimulation  in 
connection  with  the  next  example. 

Burnt  child  dreads  the  fire — proverbially.  Sight  of  a 
flame  followed  by  stretching  of  the  arm  is  one  reflex. 
Burning  followed  by  bending  is  the  other  reflex.  That  the 
burning  stimulus  is  the  more  powerful  of  the  two,  nobody 
will  question.  Sight  most  probably  continues  to  act  as  a 
stimulus  while  the  burning  produces  the  bending  move- 
ment. The  stronger  of  the  two  simultaneous  nervous  cur- 
rents then  deflects  the  weaker  one.  In  the  last  figure  let  us 
regard  the  black  and  double  lines  as  indicating  the  stronger 
current.  The  weaker  current  would  go  in  the  main  to  the 
motor  point  nearest  the  end  of  the  fine  line.  But  if  most  or 
even  all  of  this  current  is  deflected  by  the  simultaneous 
strong  current,  very  little  or  no  current  flows  in  this 
direction,  from  Sa  to  M^,  while  the  two  stimuli  are  simul- 


130  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

taneous.  It  is  in  this  case  even  easier  than  in  the  case  of 
purely  successive  stimulation  to  understand  why  the  long 
path  (from  Sa  to  Mb)  from  the  sensory  point  of  one  reflex 
arch  to  the  motor  point  of  the  other  reflex  arch  should 
finally  have  a  lesser  resistance  than  either  of  the  short 
sensory -motor  paths.  Thus  the  habit  is  formed.  The  Other- 
One  learns.  Of  course,  habit  formation  and  process  of 
learning  are  synonyms.  

We  must  return  now  to  the  discussion  of  the  fact  that 
neurons  in  general  have  a  capacity  of  suffering  a  lasting 
increase  of  conductivity  in  consequence  of  a  nervous  flux 
occurring  in  them.  When  in  life  we  have  in  mind  that 
a  thing  is  capable  of  being  changed  by  another  thing,  we 
often  refer  to  the  fact  by  saying  that  the  thing  is  suscep- 
tible to  the  other.  If,  for  example,  a  person's  intestinal 
canal  is  materially  changed  by  the  introduction  of  cholera 
germs  into  the  stomach,  we  say  that  the  person's  intestinal 
canal  is  susceptible  of  alteration  by  cholera  germs,  or  that 
the  person  is  susceptible  to  the  cholera  disease. 

We  may  use  the  same  term  "susceptibility"  with  reference 
to  the  fact  that  a  neuron  slowly  adapts  itself  to  carry  a 
nervous  flux  better  in  consequence  of  having  carried  it. 
The  adaptation,  being  a  biologic-chemical  adaptation,  can 
for  that  very  reason  be  expected  to  be  a  lasting  one.  We 
know,  or  at  least,  we  do  not  doubt,  that  immunity  to  a  dis- 
ease is  a  chemical  adaptation  and  that  it  lasts.  But  while 
learning  has  a  "lasting"  effect  in  comparison  with  preoc- 
cupation, which  rarely  lasts  to  the  next  day  or  even  hour, 
yet  the  effect  is  not  lasting  in  an  absolute  sense. 

The  contact  improvement  of  the  synapses  (preoccupa- 
tion), which  normally  does  not  last  beyond  some  minutes, 
differs  from  the  adaptation  of  the  neurons  due  to  their  sus- 
ceptibility also  in  this  respect,  that  it  establishes  itself 
quickly,  whereas  a  true  habit  establishes  itself  more  slowly. 


LEARNING    BY   REPETITION"  131 

An  initial  spurt  in  learning  something  is  as  likely  to  be  the 
effect  of  a  mere  "warming  up,"  of  preoccupation  estab- 
lishing itself  and  reducing  the  possibility  of  undesirable 
deflecting  currents  as  of  a  peculiarly  quick  rise  of  the 
true  learning  curve.  But  the  discussion  of  such  details 
carries  us  beyond  the  scope  of  this  book. 

Nevertheless  a  brief  answer  should  here  be  given  in  reply 
to  the  question :  "What  is  the  form  of  the  true  learning 
curve  ?" 

One  must  expect  that  the  magnitude  of  this  change  of 
conductivity  due  to  the  susceptibility  of  neurons  depends  on 
two  factors,  the  intensity  and  the  duration  of  the  nervous 
current.  The  intensity  is  difficult  to  control.  To  make  the 
stimuli  very  strong,  is  usually  not  practicable.  The  use  of 
preoccupation  for  strengthening  the  current  is  in  general 
unreliable  because  it  depends  on  an  individual  factor.  To 
strengthen  the  essential  nervous  current  by  providing  other 
and  inessential  ones,  weak  enough  to  be  deflected  and  cap- 
tured, and  at  the  same  time  to  keep  the  latter  from  growing 
and  deflecting  the  former,  is  often  difficult.  Therefore  one 
depends  in  school  and  out  of  school  chiefly  on  the  duration 
of  the  currents  acting  on  the  susceptibility.  And  duration 
obviously  means  here  simply  repetition,  since  in  the  single 
intercourse  of  two  reflexes  the  duration  can  rarely  be  pro- 
longed. 

Learning  curves  therefore  represent  time  (or  the  num- 
ber of  repetitions)  in  the  horizontal  co-ordinate  and  the 
changing  efficiency  of  the  motor  function  in  the  vertical  co- 
ordinate. Our  figure  shows  us  a  typical  learning  curve, 
rising  first  quickly,  later  more  slowly.  A  necessary  infer- 
ence from  this  behavior  of  the  curve  is  that  in  a  con- 
tinuous process  of  learning,  lasting,  say,  half  an  hour,  the 
first  few  minutes  are  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  exercise. 
During  the  following  minutes  less  and  less  is  gained  in 


132  PSYCPIOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

efficiency,  and  the  last  few  minutes  of  the  half  hour  add 
so  little  to  the  result  that  we  might  just  as  well  have  stopped 
earlier. 

A 


LEARNING  DEPENDENT  ON  TIME. 

This  fact  is  established  beyond  doubt  by  experiment  and 
agrees  also  with  the  ordinary  experience  of  any  one  who 
has  to  practice  anything,  for  example,  the  school-boy  mem- 
orizing a  foreign  vocabulary.  To  read  over  the  whole  task 
five  minutes  a  day  for  a  sufficient  number  of  days  to  com- 
plete it,  is  far  more  economical  with  regard  to  the  total 
time  required,  than  to  complete  the  task  in  one  continuous 
memorizing.  If  we  continue  the  process  only  for  five  min- 
utes, we  do  not  make  use  of  the  uneconomical  time  part  of 
the  curve,  toward  the  right. 

We  know  that  the  opposite  of  learning,  forgetting,  is  of 
as  much  consequence  in  actual  life  as  learning.  If  we  call 
forgetting  the  opposite  of  learning,  we  should  do  so  ex- 
clusively in  one  sense,  only  with  reference  to  "negative  sus- 
ceptibility." (The  next  paragraph  will  explain  this  term.) 
In  other  senses  "forgetting"  would  be  a  mere  synonym  of 
"inattention"  in  the  three  social  meanings  of  this  word 
which  we  enumerated  in  the  preceding  chapter.  A  night 
watchman  may  "forget"  to  lock  the  door  because  he  was 
sleepy.  We  may  on  leaving  the  house  "forget"  to  lock  the 
door  because  of  preoccupation,  or  in  consequence  of  another 
stimulus  causing  deflection  from  its  path  of  the  "locking" 
current  at  the  critical  moment. 

We  have  just  used  the  term  "negative  susceptibility"  as 
meaning  that  the  "reduced"  resistance  of  any  nervous  con- 


LEARNING  AND  FORGETTING 


133 


ductor  "very  slowly  rises  again  to  its  original  measure." 
Since  "negative  susceptibility"  is  thus  the  capacity  of  a 
neuron  for  an  adaptation  to  lack  of  function,  its  capacity 
for  an  adaptation  to  function  may,  by  contrast,  be  called 
"positive  susceptibility"  as  well  as  simply  susceptibility. 


Tirr? 


FORGETTING   DEPENDENT 
ON   TIME. 


The  forgetting  curve  as  shown  in  our  first  "forgetting" 
figure  falls  first  quickly,  later  more  slowly.  This  behavior 
refers  only  to  the  etifect  of  the  negative  susceptibility. 
During  the  first  few  seconds  or  minutes  directly  following 


Time 


FORGETTING    DELAYED 
BY    PREOCCUPATION. 

a  period  of  practice,  there  seems  to  be  virtually  no  forget- 
ting, and  one  might  therefore  be  inclined  to  draw  the  for- 
getting curve  as  it  is  drawn  in  the  second  diagram  going 
under  this  name,  remaining  almost  on  a  level  for  a  short 
time  before  it  quickly  falls. 


134  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER- ONE 

This,  however,  is  probably  not  a  true  forgetting  curve. 
The  lack  of  "forgetting"  during  the  initial  period  is  prob- 
ably due  to  the  preoccupation,  that  is,  to  still  continued  con- 
tact improvement  in  the  synapses.  The  preoccupation  dis- 
appears rather  suddenly,  and  the  curve  then  falls.  The 
ordinate  values  of  this  curve  thus  represent,  not  one  vari- 
able, but  the  sum  of  two  variables. 

We  have  had  to  speak  in  this  chapter  of  a  new  property, 
not  mentioned  in  the  previous  chapters,  of  conductive  tissue, 
namely,  its  positive  and  negative  susceptibility.  This  seems 
to  be  a  proper  occasion  for  making  some  further  state- 
ments about  the  very  differentiation  of  conductive  tissue. 
An  increase  of  conductivity  of  some  neurons  over  the  con- 
ductivity possessed  by  others  is  in  a  certain  sense  a  con- 
tinuation of  differentiation.  The  differentiation,  however, 
procedes  along  still  another  line.  It  leads  to  a  distinction 
of  neurons  having  a  specially  high  "conductivity  for  a  par- 
ticular quality  of  flux"  from  all  other  neurons,  which  then 
have  for  this  quality  of  flvix  only  a  more  moderate  con- 
ductivity. Innumerable  facts  of  ordinary  life,  not  to  speak 
of  experiments  made  in  the  laboratory,  tell  us  that  there  is 
"specific"  in  addition  to  "general"  conductivity.  When- 
ever the  term  "resistance"  is  more  suitable  for  the  dis- 
cussion than  "conductivity,"  "specific  resistance"  (low) 
and  "general  resistance"  (high)  are  to  be  distinguished. 
This  is  not  a  hypothesis,  but  a  terminology  needed  for  the 
description  of  the  most  ordinary  facts  of  the  Other-One's 
behavior. 

We  stimulate  a  definite  area,  say,  the  fovea,  of  the  Other- 
One's  retina  with  a  properly  placed  piece  of  red  paper.  He 
responds  by  saying  "red."  We  substitute  a  green  paper.  The 
Other-One  responds  by  saying  "green."  Different  muscles 
have  acted.  How  could  different  muscles  act  when  the 
same  sensitive  cells  were  stimulated  ?    Now,  unquestionably 


SPECIFIC    RESISTANCE  135 

the  chemical  changes  in  those  same  sensitive  cells  — the 
excitations — were  different  in  the  two  cases.  Nobody  doubts 
that.  It  follows  logically,  that  each  excitation  found  the 
least  resistance  in  the  direction  toward  a  particular  motor 
point  simply  because  it  was  of  this  specific  chemical  nature, 
and  not  of  another  one. 

How  is  it  possible  for  a  single  conductor  to  have  several 
specific  resistances,  different  for  different  qualities  of  flux? 
We  can  understand  this  without  great  difficulty.  A  nerv- 
ous current,  as  we  have  previously  said,  is  probably  a  wan- 
dering of  ions.  In  a  highly  complex  chemical  substance  like 
that  which  makes  up  nervous  tissue,  many  kinds  (hundreds 
or  even  thousands)  of  molecules  may  serve  as  ions.  This 
is  something  like  the  streaming  in  filtering  and  in  osmosis, 
but  even  more  complicated  than  such  processes. 

The  assumption  of  specific  resistances  is  a  brief  expression 
of  the  fact  that  the  motor  outlet  of  a  nervous  current  is 
often  determined  by  the  quality  of  the  flux  and  not  merely 
by  the  anatomical  condition  of  the  flux  taking  its  origin  in 
a  particular  sensory  point. 

(For  the  reader  who  is  not  an  ordinary  student  it  may 
be  said  here  that  the  author  of  this  book  has  shown  else- 
where— The  Fundamental  Laws  of  Human  Behavior,  pp. 
158-167, — that  the  distinction  of  a  general  resistance  and 
specific  resistances  in  neurons  permits  a  mathematical  dem- 
onstration of  the  "possibility"  of  the  responding  motor  point 
being  definitely  changed  by  reversing  the  "temporal  order" 
of  qualitatively  differing  stimuli.  For  example,  the  Other- 
One  responds  in  one  way  to  hearing  "tack"  pronounced,  in 
another  way  to  hearing  "cat.") 

Naming  colors  red  and  green  is  a  habit,  as  is  all  definite 
speech.  Clearly,  a  neuron  may  take  a  specific  resistance, 
a  specific  conductivity,  during  and  in  consequence  of  the 
process  of  learning,  thereby  revealing  its  susceptibility.   Brt 


136  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

it  is  also  clear  that  the  specific  resistance  of  many  a  neuron 
is  the  result  of  heredity.  We  know  that  in  animals  the 
reflex  response  to  red,  for  example,  differs  from  the  reflex 
response  to  green,  under  certain  (not  by  any  means  all) 
experimental  conditions.  Remember  a  bull  or  a  turkey  gob- 
bler. Remember  also  the  distinctive  coloring,  the  distinctive 
sounds,  the  distinctive  odors  of  many  species,  which  almost 
unquestionably  serve  definite  reflexes. 

It  is  worth  while  to  mention  in  this  connection  that  the 
differentiation  of  neurons  into  many  classes  having  distinct 
specific  conductivities  (in  addition  to  general  conductivity) 
is  a  great  aid  to  the  architect  of  the  nervous  system.  This 
diiTerentiation  enables  the  architect  to  get  along  with  a 
smaller  number  of  building  elements,  a  smaller  total  number 
of  neurons.  A  common  path  from  the  sensory  point  in  ques- 
tion can  serve  more  reflexes  than  one  until  a  point  is 
reached,  close  enough  to  the  several  motor  points,  where 
division  is  necessary  in  order  to  call  forth  this  or  that  of 
several  reflex  actions  serving  that  sensory  point.  Even 
tho  the  total  number  of  neurons  is  great,  five  thousand 
millions  or  more,  there  must  be  economy  in  their  architec- 
tural employment,  considering  the  actual  complexity  of  the 
Other-One's  life. 

Specific  conductivities  not  only  help  us  to  understand 
why  the  Other-One  reacts  differently  to  different  stimuli 
applied  to  the  same  sensory  point.  Specific  conductivities 
also  help  us  to  understand  why  the  Other-One  calls  "dif- 
ferent" stimuli  sometimes  "similar."  For  example,  the  art- 
ists call  green  and  blue  similar,  give  them,  a  common  name 
and  call  them  cool  colors.  A  common  name,  where  it  does 
not  indicate  equality,  always  has  the  significance  of  "sim- 
ilarity." But  the  usage  of  language,  it  is  well  to  remember, 
inconsistently  does  not  always  provide  a  common  name  for 
things  which  are  called  similar, — thus  causing  not  infre- 


SIMILARITY  137 

quent  trouble  to  the  psychologist.  Tones  of  piano  keys 
which  are  neighbors,  are  called  similar  by  the  psychologists, 
altho  they  have  no  common  name.  And  tones  which  the 
musicians  call  Octaves,  Fifths,  Fourths,  and  which  are 
apart,  maybe  very  far  apart,  on  the  key-board,  are  never- 
theless called  similar  by  the  psychologists, — and  again  the 
usage  of  language  has  not  provided  a  common  name. 

In  some  of  these  cases,  obviously,  each  nervous  current 
consists  of  two  (or  more)  kinds  of  ions.  One  kind  finds 
its  specific  (that  is,  lowest)  resistance  over  the  neurons  in 
the  direction  of  one  motor  outlet,  another  kind  in  another 
direction.  So  the  flower  picked  up  by  the  Other-One  may 
be  called  by  him  blue,  or  it  may  be  called  dark.  Whether 
one  or  the  other  competing  motor  outlet  "beats,"  depends 
on  many  circumstances  in  the  functioning  of  the  system, 
such  as  "preoccupation,"  or  perhaps  the  existence  of  an- 
other current  going  already  independently  (and  therefore 
deflecting)  toward  that  particular  motor  outlet.  The  piece  of 
coal  picked  up  by  the  Other-One  is  never  called  blue  by  him 
(tho  perhaps  "uncolored")  ;  but  it  is  often,  like  the  flower, 
called  dark.  There  must  be  an  ion  class  in  both  currents 
("coal"  and  "flower")  which  easily  finds  its  way  toward 
the  "dark"  motor  outlet.  It  must  find  specific  conductivity 
of  the  proper  kind  in  the  neurons  there. 

In  other  cases  the  nervous  currents  may  differ  by  the 
frequency  with  which  ions  break  loose  from  a  larger  mole- 
cule. If  the  frequency  differs  little,  the  same  neuron  in- 
vites, so  to  speak,  both  currents  by  offering  them  a  specific 
conductivity.  Thus  the  tones  E  and  F,  or  F  and  F-sharp, 
are  similar. 

In  still  other  cases  ions  may  have  such  geometrical  de- 
signs in  the  grouping  of  their  atoms  that  they  find  a  par- 
ticular neuron  with  specific  conductivity  favoring  both.  A 
neuron  accommodating,  so  to  speak,  a  group  of  30,  may  also 


138  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

readily  accommodate  a  group  of  45  atoms, — perhaps  on  ac- 
count of  the  same  factor  (15)  existing  in  both  numbers. 
But  the  same  neuron,  favoring  30,  may  not  quite  so  readily 
favor  an  ion  grouped  together  out  of  31  or  32  atoms. 

The  reader  familiar  with  acoustics  probably  notices  al- 
ready that  the  numbers  30  and  45  refer  to  a  case  of  the 
tones,  say,  F  and  C ;  and  that  the  other  numbers  refer  to 
a  case  like  F  and  F-sharp.  The  most  distinguished  author 
on  the  psychology  of  tone,  Stumpf,  has  used  the  term 
"specific  synergies"  with  reference  to  the  interrelation  of 
neuron  functions  of  this  kind,  as  exemplified  by  the  num- 
bers 30  and  45. 

One  neuron,  then,  may  readily  accommodate  both  the  30 
group  and  the  45  group  of  atoms,  but  not  readily  both  the 
30  group  and  the  32  group.  Another  neuron,  however,  may 
accommodate  most  readily  the  near  frequencies  of  tone  stim- 
ulation, but  not  readily  both  the  30  group  and  the  45  group. 

Thus  one  can  understand  why  F  and  C,  in  a  certain  sense, 
deserve  to  be  regarded  as  more  similar  than  F  and  F-sharp ; 
in  another  sense  F  and  F-sharp  more  similar  than  F  and 
C. 

These  examples  of  what  "similarity"  means  in  the  Other- 
One's  life,  are  given  here  purely  as  suggestions  indicating 
where  the  true  problem  lies.  Why  are  there  such  identities 
of  muscular  reaction,- — replaced  commonly  by  the  brief 
name  "similar"?  These  problems  are  unquestionably  of  a 
chemical  nature.  The  chemistry  of  the  neuron,  some  time 
in  the  future — not  too  remote,  let  us  hope — will  unquestion- 
ably give  a  simple  solution  to  problems  which  long  have 
bewildered  and  still  perplex  the  student  of  the  life  of  the 
Other-One. 

There  is,  concerning  the  fixation  of  a  new  path,  a  very 
important  problem  still  left.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that 
in  addition  to  the  fixation  by  susceptibility,  which  makes  a 


SHORTENING  THE    NERVOUS    PATH  139 

long  path  function  as  if  it  were  a  short  one,  there  is  another 
kind  of  fixation.  There  seems  to  be  a  secondary  fixation 
which  actually  shortens  the  nervous  path,  but  only  in  case 
the  repetitions  making  up  the  learning  process  are  extended 
over  weeks  and  months.  We  can  explain  this  shortening 
by  the  aid  of  a  comparatively  simple  hypothesis. 

All  tissue  growth  is  known  to  be  either  by  cell  division 
or  by  a  change  in  size  or  shape  or  other  respects  of  already 
existing  individual  cells.  Different  kinds  of  tissues,  how- 
ever, show  a  remarkable  difference  with  respect  to  these 
two  kinds  of  growth  at  the  different  ages  of  an  animal. 
In  certain  tissues,  cell  division  can  occur  all  thru  life.  The 
necessity  of  this  in  certain  tissues  is  clear,  for  example,  in 
those  tissues  of  which  our  skin  consists.  When  we  have 
received  a  considerable  wound,  involving  the  loss  of  some 
skin,  the  cells  at  the  edges  of  the  wound  divide.  The  re- 
sulting new  cells  increase  in  size  and  divide  again;  and  so 
on  until  the  opening  is  completely  covered  with  new  skin. 
Without  cell  division  any  new  skin  could  hardly  be  formed, 
since  there  is  a  limit  to  the  size  which  individual  cells  may 
normally  attain.  But  scarcely  any  animal  goes  through  life 
without  frequently  receiving  wounds. 

In  other  tissues  cell  division  becomes  impossible  after 
the  animal  has  reached  a  certain  age.  Since  the  muscles 
are  of  special  significance  for  animal  behavior,  let  us  take 
the  muscles  as  an  example.  It  seems  that  in  human 
muscles  cell  division  becomes  impossible  after  the  age  of 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  years.  From  this  follows  the 
important  fact  that,  in  order  to  become  an  athlete,  a  person 
must  exercise  his  muscles  and  thus  induce  both  cell  division 
and  cell  growth  before  the  age  of  twenty-five  years  at  the 
latest.  If  he  has  failed  to  do  this,  the  number  of  muscle 
cells  which  he  possesses  is  so  small  that  exercise,  because 
of  the  limited  growth  of  the  individual  cells,  will  now  only 


140  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

slightly  increase  the  bulk  and  therefore  the  total  strength 
of  his  muscles.  This  age  limit  for  cell  division  differs  in 
tissues  of  various  kinds. 

The  bulk  of  the  nervous  system  consists  of  nervous  tissue 
proper,  that  is,  the  conducting  tissue,  and  of  supporting 
tissue.  In  the  latter,  cell  division  may  occur  at  any  age. 
In  the  nervous  tissue  proper,  however,  cell  division,  that 
is  the  multiplication  of  neurons,  stops  before  man  begins 
his  postnatal  life.  It  has  been  found  that  about  three 
months  before  birth  man  has  as  many  neurons  as  he  will 
ever  have  in  his  life. 

At  this  time  the  vast  majority  of  these  neurons  are  in 
the  undeveloped  condition  which  we  have  already  described. 
They  are  little  balls  without  any  branches  and  therefore  of 
no  value  for  the  conduction  of  an  excitation.  They  de- 
velop into  complete  conductors  at  various  stages  of  the 
Other-One's  life.  Some  develop  early,  in  order  to  serve 
those  muscular  activities  which  the  baby  needs  immediately 
on  entering  into  life,  for  example,  the  activities  of  sucking 
and  swallowing.  Others  develop  during  the  succeeding 
years  of  childhood  and  youth. 

It  is  a  peculiar  fact,  however,  that  even  in  old  age  there 
are  still  many  undeveloped  neurons  present  in  the  Other- 
One's  brain.  The  conclusion  offers  itself  that  these  un- 
developed neurons  enable  him  to  acquire,  even  at  an  ad- 
vanced age,  certain  new  responses  to  stimulations. 

The  numerical  possibility  for  the  architect  of  leaving,  to 
the  time  of  death,  a  considerable  number  of  neurons  un- 
developed and  unused,  appears  from  the  fact  that  the  total 
number  of  neurons  in  the  brain  is  enormous,  uncountable. 
A  day  of  twenty-four  hours  contains  86,400  seconds,  a 
hundred  years  but  little  more  than  three  thousand  million 
seconds.     How  could  v/e  count  the  neurons  in  the  brain 


UNDEVELOPED  NEUEONS 


141 


even  if  they  were  only  an  equal  number  of  millions, — and 
they  probably  are  more ! 

Thus  it  does  not  matter  much  if  the  Other-One  takes  a 
few  millions  of  undeveloped  neurons  with  him  into  the 
grave,  provided  that  thereby  he  is  at  any  time  of  his  life 
capable  of  forming  new  useful  habits.  Capable  also  of 
regaining  nervous  functions  which  he  has  lost  in  con- 
sequence of  a  lesion  within  his  brain, — say,  a  bullet  having 
passed  thru  his  brain.  In  such  a  case,  if  he  is  lucky  enough 
to  remain  alive,  he  is  at  first — and  he  may  be  permanently 
— found  incapable  of  performing  certain  skilful  move- 
ments and  of  reacting  in  any  way  to  certain  stimulations. 

If  a  piece  of  his  brain  is  destroyed,  it  does  not  regenerate 
like  a  piece  of  his  skin.  What  takes  the  vacant  place  is 
not  the  same  kind  of  thing.  The  conductive  tissue  does  not 
regenerate.  Its  room  is  filled  out  with  supporting  tissue. 
The  neurons  lost,  are  lost  forever.  The  functions  lost, 
however,  may  be  entirely  or  partly  regained,  just  as  if 
they  were  new  habits. 

We  stated  that  a  new  nervous  path,  after  having  been 
fixed  in  its  original  length  thru  the  susceptibility  of  the 
neurons  of  which  it  consists,  may  later  be  shortened.  We 
can  now  explain  how  this  shortening  can  come  about.  Sup- 
pose a  new  path  leads  now,  instead  of  to  the  point  Mp  which 
in  our  figure  may  be  imagined  to  correspond  to  Sp,  by 
way  of  higher  centers  to  a  non-corresponding  point,  say, 
Mq.  Sp  and  Mq  are  supposed  to  belong  to  two  reflex  arches 
which  are  very  remotely  related,  so  that  the  first  resulting 
path  goes  over  very  high  centers  and  is  of  a  very  round- 
about and  zigzag  nature.  The  figure  represents  this  dia- 
grammatically,  without  suggesting  that  the  path  in  the  brain 
would  asjtually  present  itself  to  the  eye  as  a  symmetrical 
figure  like  this. 


142 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


SHORT-CIRCUITING     IN     THE 
NERVOUS     SYSTEM. 


What  is  important  in  the  diagram  is  only  that  in  various 
places,  for  example,  at  8%  two  points  of  the  path  are  by 
chance  very  near  each  other.  Let  us  assume  that  in  such  a 
case  we  have  between  the  two  points  a  peculiar,  growth 
inducing,  biological  condition,  just  as  we  should  have,  if 
the  path  were  a  metallic  conductor  carrying  a  high  poten- 
tial current,  an  electrical  tension  likely  to  break  thru  the 
insulating  substance  in  sparks.  This  simple  hypothesis  is 
sufficient  to  explain  the  second  kind  of  fixation  of  the  varia- 
tion of  a  nervous  path.  The  biological  tension,  so  to  speak, 
between  S'^p  and  M\  causes  one  or  more  of  the  undevel- 
oped nerve  cells  to  grow  and  send  out  branches  in  either 
direction  of  the  tension. 

The  consequence  of  this  development  of  a  new  connect- 
ing neuron  is  a  shortening  of  the  path  leading  from  Sp  to 
Mq  by  practically  putting  out  of  function  the  part  above 
S^  M\,  owing  to  the  higher  resistance  of  this  upper  loop. 
The  result  of  the  new  growth  is  that  the  response  at  Mq  to 
stimulation  of  Sp  occurs  with  greater  quickness  and  also 
with  greater  definiteness,  exclusiveness,  for  less  of  the  flux 
from  Sp  can  now  reach  motor  points  other  than  Mq. 

The  same  kind  of  shortening  of  the  path  may  occur  later 
between  S-/p  and  M\.     Here  again  the  biological  tension 


AUTOMATIC    ACTION  143 

may  cause  the  development  of  a  new  connecting  neuron  out 
of  an  undeveloped  nerve  cell.  The  length  of  the  total  path 
leading  from  Sp  to  M,  may  thus  be  reduced  to  almost  that 
of  a  reflex  arch.  The  response  at  M,  to  a  stimulus  at  Sp 
must  then  occur  with  the  same  quickness  and  definiteness 
as  a  reflex.  That  habits  can  become  very  much  like  re- 
flexes is  well  known.  In  the  drilling  of  a  soldier  good  ex- 
amples can  be  found  by  any  observer. 

Action  of  this  kind  is  called  automatic.  It  scarcely  dif- 
fers from  reflex  action  in  any  respect,  save  in  its  origin, 
which  is  not  hereditary.  Its  resemblance  to  reflex  action 
is  illustrated  also  by  the  slowness  with  which  the  destruc- 
tive influences  of  certain  diseases  of  the  brain  attack  it. 
When  a  nervous  disease  has  made  a  man's  actions  entirely 
illogical,  certain  automatic  actions  still  occur  with  the  same 
promptness  as  most  reflexes,  for  example,  oaths — in  people 
who  have  acquired  the  habit  of  swearing  in  early  life. 
This  indicates  the  probability  that  our  hypothesis  agrees 
with  what  actually  occurs  in  the  brain.  Since  the  disease 
attacks  the  higher  centers  of  the  brain  before  the  lower 
centers,  the  development  of  the  automatic  action  of  swear- 
ing seems  to  have  consisted  in  the  functional  cutting  out  of 
the  higher  centers  from  the  path,  as  explained  in  the  dia- 
gram of  our  figure. 

If  the  distance  between  S^p  and  M^^  had  been  less  than 
the  distance  between  S'^p  and  M^q,  the  shortening  of  the 
path  might  immediately  have  occurred  here.  The  possibility 
agrees  with  the  observation  that  habitual  reactions  are 
sometimes  made  automatic,  quick  and  sure,  only  in  nu- 
merous stages,  sometimes  become  completely  automatic 
almost  at  one  time,  without  any  explanation  of  this  dif- 
ference offering  itself  in  the  circumstances  of  the  experi- 
ment. 


144 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


Another  interesting  fact  which  may  have  its  explanation 
in  this  short-circuiting  is  illustrated  by  our  figure  of  tests 
during  the  learning  process.  Each  of  the  small  steps  of 
the  figure  indicates  one  test.  Because  of  the  many  factors 
which  disturb  every  test  we  do  not  expect  that  every  step 
rises  with  regularity  above  the  preceding  test.  But  we 
hardly  expect  to  find  a  tendency  for  the  values  to  remain 
virtually  on  a  level  during  several  successive  tests,  only  to 
rise  again  quite  rapidly  afterwards.  Nevertheless  this  is 
what  sometimes  has  been  found. 


..^ECONOLCVCt 


First  lcvcl 


TESTS    DURING    THE    LEARNING    PROCESS. 

It  is  possible  that  each  of  these  apparent  levels  is  really, 
not  a  plateau,  but  a  gradient  of  a  small  angle,  and  indicates 
a  period  of  slow  progress  of  learning, — the  ordinary  slow 
improvement  in  skill,  speed,  or  whatever  may  be  tested. 
But  while  the  final  adjustments  of  cutting  off  a  loop  in  the 
nervous  system  are  being  made,  the  tests  of  the  person's 
efificiency  must  reveal  a  more  precipitous  improvement. 
After  this  the  efficiency  rises  again  slowly,  until  another 
neuron,  having  had  time  enough  to  grow,  extends  its  fiber 
in  the  line  of  biological  tension,  cuts  off  another  loop  and 
thus  raises  the  efficiency  again  more  quickly   during  the 


ALTERNATE  SLOW  AND  QUICK  LEARNING  145 

following  tests  during  which  the  synapse  estabHshes  itself 
completely.  Instead  of  speaking  of  levels,  we  ought,  if  the 
explanation  by  this  hypothesis  is  correct,  to  speak  rather 
of  alternating  periods  of  comparatively  slow  and  of  quick- 
ened progress. 

We  have  said  much  in  this  chapter  about  the  fact  that 
the  Other-One  learns.  We  have  meant  by  it  that  he  grad- 
ually varies  those  responses  with  which  Nature  has  endowed 
him  thru  heredity  giving  him  reflexes.  We  have  discussed 
the  conditions  under  which  learning  takes  place.  Some 
of  these  conditions  are  circumstantial.  They  i»efer  to  the 
nature  and  manner  of  stimulation.  Other  conditions  are 
intrinsic.  They  refer  to  the  biological  properties  of  the 
conductive  tissue. 

If  the  Other-One  did  not  learn,  he  would  not  differ  much 
from  plants.  He  would  still  be  more  mobile  than  plants 
generally  are.  His  nervous  system,  built  up  out  of  reflex 
arches,  would  be  an  essential  factor  in  securing  for  him 
this  mobility.  And  his  nervous  system  would  therefore 
still  be  a  distinguishing  mark.  Nevertheless  his  life  would 
not  be  very  different  from  plant  life.  (Do  we  not  say  that 
some  of  his  functions,  e.  g.,  digestion,  are  "vegetative"?) 
But  he  varies  his  actions  during  his  individual  life.  He 
varies  them  enormously.  And  thus  plants  become  quite 
incomparable  to  him.     He  varies:  he  learns  or  wills. 

Learning,  as  thus  far  considered,  is  a  process  which  in 
each  case  goes  on  rather  slowly. — The  Other-One  varied 
from  what  we  were  accustomed  to  see  him  do.  He  varied 
from  his  reflex  actions.  We  became  accustomed  to  his 
habits,  and  he  varied  from  his  habits  again.  Still  in  every 
case  the  variation  of  response  established  itself  so  slowly 
that  we  could  speak  of  a  more  or  less  conspicuous  "process" 
of  learning. 


146  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

However,  in  many  of  the  higher  animals  as  well  as  in 
the  Other-One  of  our  own  species  we  observe  cases  of 
\ariation  of  response  which  surprise  us  thru  the  lack  of 
any  slow  process  of  formation  of  what,  nevertheless,  looks 
like  a  new  habit.  We  are  surprised  by  the  quickness  with 
which  the  change  came  about.  For  example,  a  dog  which 
viciously  attacks  every  stranger  and  accepts  no  offers  of 
friendship  from  them,  is  one  morning  found  dead,  poisoned. 
At  the  same  time  there  are  signs  noticed  of  unwelcome 
visitors  to  the  house.  Obviously  these  succeeded  in  "teach- 
ing" him  in  a  few  seconds  to  behave  quite  differently  to- 
ward strangers  and  silently  to  accept  food  from  them.  In 
the  Other-One's  life  we  call  the  counterpart  of  such  quick 
teaching,  not  "learning"  or  "habit  formation,"  but  "willing." 
And  this  teaching  process  we  often  call  persuasion  or  temp- 
tation, no  matter  whether  the  teacher  is  a  person  or  a  ma- 
terial situation. 

The  word  "will"  plays  in  literature  two  especially  im- 
portant roles.  First,  in  the  phrase  "freedom  of  the  will;" 
second,  in  the  phrase  "strength  of  the  will." 

We  read  in  mythology  that  Heracles  once  met  on  a  di- 
vision of  the  road  two  women  who  called  his  attention  to 
the  advantages  of  the  one  and  the  other  continuation  of  the 
road.  They  tried  to  teach  him.  One  did  not  succeed  in 
teaching  him.    The  other  did  succeed.     He  learned. 

But  where  the  process  of  learning  is  so  brief,  we  don't 
call  it  learning.  We  call  it  willing.  And  since  in  a  case  of 
learning  where  the  time  is  so  short,  where  repetition  is  so 
inconspicuous,  the  outcome  is  so  difficult  to  foretell  by  the 
onlooker,  we  call  the  outcome  an  accident.  It  seems  like 
the  weather,  like  the  wind  which  blows  whence  and  whither 
it  wishes.  In  this  sense  we  speak  of  "freedom."  Free- 
dom of  action  in  the  animal  world  signifies  the  same  that 
is  meant  by  accidents  in  the  world  of  physics. 


WILLING 


147 


It  is  quite  likely  that  where  the  variation  is  preceded  by  so 
brief  a  process  of  learning,  it  is  really  more  depending  on  a 
temporary  condition  of  the  synapses  than  on  the  rather 
permanent  reduction  of  the  resistance  of  the  whole  neuron 
paths, — more  depending,  that  is,  on  preoccupation  than  on 
true  learning. 

Why  do  we  speak  so  little  of  accidents  in  physics  and 
so  much  of  freedom  in  human  life?  This  is  itself  an  ac- 
cident. Because  the  accidents  happen  to  be  the  very  facts 
which  a  professor  of  physics  is  least  interested  in,  he  men- 
tions them  rarely  in  his  books  and  lectures.  But  the  pro- 
fessors of  the  various  forms  of  conduct  in  human  society 
and  of  human  history  happen  to  take  more  interest  in  the 
cases  of  quick  and  unsure  learning  (in  freedom)  than  in 
the  slowly  and  surely  progressing  cases  of  learning  (in 
habit).  Therefore  we  hear  so  much  talk  of  freedom  of 
action  and  read  so  much  about  it  in  literature, — in  fiction 
as  well  as  in  the  literature  of  law  and  religion. 

The  Other-One's  conduct  is  free,  uncaused,  only  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  the  issue  of  a  disease,  the  outcome  of 
a  war,  the  weather,  the  crops,  are  free  and  uncaused ;  that 
is,  in  the  sense  of  general  human  ignorance  of  the  par- 
ticular causes  of  the  particular  outcome. 

Paralysis  of  activity  is  often  said  to  be  the  consequence 
of  too  much  talk  of  universal  causation.  But  surely  the 
energetic  and  ambitious  man  is  not  paralyzed  thereby.  He 
is  the  tool  used  by  nature  to  shape  the  destinies  of  the  world. 
How  could  the  admission  by  others  of  his  importance  in 
the  causal  connections  of  events  paralyze  his  activity?  The 
idle  and  indolent  person  may  excuse  his  lack  of  activity 
by  saying  that  it  is  his  nature  to  love  inactivity,  that  he 
cannot  help  it.  But  who  would  have  any  more  respect  for 
htm  on  that  account?  Of  course  it  is  not  his  having  heard 
of  universal  causation  that  makes  him  indolent. 


148  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

The  lesson  from  history  is  very  significant  in  this  re- 
spect. But  it  must  not  be  read  one-sidedly.  It  is  all  right 
to  point  out  that  the  fatalistic  Islam  is  losing  piece  after 
piece  of  its  dominion.  But  the  same  fatalistic  Islam  also 
conquered  a  world  and  for  centuries  kept  all  Europe  both 
in  terror  and  in  admiration  of  its  cultural  achievements. 
Thus  it  cannot  be  its  fatalism  that  determined  its  rise  and 
its  downfall. 

Next  to  "freedom"  of  will,  "strength"  of  will  is  probably 
the  most  disputed  phrase  containing  reference  to  this  quick 
and  unsure  process  of  learning.  We  think  of  Napoleon  as 
a  man  of  a  strong  will.  \Ye  think  of  iMicawber  as  having 
a  weak  will.  Napoleon  often  "learns  quickly,"  makes 
quick  decisions.  Micawber  also  often  finds  himself  in  sit- 
uations where  a  man  "learns  quickly,"  makes  quick  de- 
cisions. 

But  in  Micawber's  life  it  is  impossible  to  put  these  de- 
cisions under  one  of  a  few  chapter  headings  in  his  biog- 
raphy, under  one  of  the  "aims"  of  his  life.  Some  of  these 
decisions  would  have  to  go  under  eating,  others  under  drink- 
ing, some  under  sleeping,  others  under  looking  out  of  a 
window,  some  under  promenading,  others  under  gossip- 
ing,— and  whatever  happens  frequently  in  everybody's 
routine  of  daily  life.  It  is  impossible  to  write  his  biog- 
raphy with  a  table  of  contents  made  up  of  a  list  of  his 
"aims"  or  "purposes."  In  Napoleon's  biography  such  a 
table  of  contents  could  be  made  without  difficulty.  Such  is 
the  difference  to  which  we  refer  by  weakness  or  strengtli 
of  the  Other-One's  "will." 

Freedom  of  will  and  strength  of  will  are  clearly  terms 
which  are  of  far  more  significance  to  the  sciences  of  social 
institutions  than  to  the  science  of  the  Other-One's  individ- 
ual activity.  They  are  sociological  rather  than  psycholog- 
ical terms. 


WILLING    BLOCKED    BY    ANESTHESIA 


149 


Of  peculiar  significance  in  the  variation  of  the  nervous 
path,  and  thus  in  the  variation  of  the  response  to  a  definite 
stimulation,  is  the  muscular  or  so-called  kinesthetic  sense. 
In  a  previous  chapter  the  fact  has  already  been  referred  to, 
that  the  muscles  are  not  only  motor  organs  but  also  sense 
organs.  Many  kinds  of  concerted  action  depend  on  the  in- 
tactness  of  the  sensory  nerves  serving  the  muscles  concerned. 
A  workman  received  a  knife  wound  in  the  spinal  cord. 
Complete   recovery  occurred,   with  the  exception  that  the 


WILLING    IS    A    SENSORY- MOTOR    FUNCTION. 


right  hand  and  lower  arm  remained  perfectly  anesthetic. 
The  muscles  of  the  hand  and  arm  functioned  almost  nor- 
mally. But  movements,  even  very  moderately  complicated, 
could  no  longer  be  performed  unless  the  man  saw  his  hand 
and  its  movement.  The  illustration  shows  his  behavior 
when  requested  to  form  a  ring  with  his  thumb  and  index 
finger.  He  could  do  this  fairly  well  when  permitted  to  look 
at  his  hand.  Otherwise  it  was  impossible,  in  spite  of  the 
nuiscular  capacity  to  perform  this  action. 

Of  course,  that  man  did  not  have  either  a  reflex  or  a 
habit  (no  one  has)  of  making  a  ring  with  his  finger  and 
thumb.  A  normal  person,  however,  can  be  taught  to  do  it, 
either  by  the  slow  and  sure  process  of  training  him  or, 
just  as  well,  by  the  quick  and  unsure  process  of  persuading 
him.    A  normal  person  can  "learn"  or  "will"  to  make  such 


150  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

a  ring.  This  workman,  too,  can  learn  or  will  to  do  it,  but 
only  under  condition  of  using  his  eyes.  In  this  respect 
be  differs  from  normal  persons.  The  example  shows  clear- 
1)'  that  "willing"  is  a  sensory-motor  function  and  nothing 
else.  Of  a  mysterious  "will  power"  in  the  Other-One  the 
psychologist  of  the  Other-One  has  no  knowledge,  because 
the  sense  organs  do  not  reveal  it  to  him.  Any  interference 
with  the  Other-One's  nervous  currents  changes  the  reaction 
of  the  motor  organs  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  the 
interference.  If  there  is  no  such  interference,  there  is  no 
change  in  the  reaction. 

If  the  psychologist  is  pressed  to  tell  what  the  difference 
is  between  willed  and  unwilled  actions  of  the  Other-One, 
he  will  refer  to  the  greater  possibility  of  preoccupation  and 
of  true  learning  in  more  complex  sensory-motor  functions, 
and  he  will  therefore  say  that  so-called  willed  actions  are 
those  of  a  more  complicated,  unwilled  actions  those  of  a  less 
complicated  nervous  functioning.  The  border  line  between 
the  two  classes  is  a  matter  of  expediency,  of  taste.  Therefore 
the  lack  of  a  uniform  usage  of  the  terms  "willing"  and  "un- 
willing" among  lawyers,  theologians,  students  of  the  social 
sciences,  writers  of  fiction,  and  so  forth. 

"Willing"  means  "being  teachable;"  "unwilling,"  i.  e., 
involuntary,  means  "being  unteachable."  An  involuntary 
act  is  the  act  of  a  person  who  is  regarded  as  having  been 
unteachable  during  the  short  learning  period  of  the  case. 
But  since  the  teachableness  of  a  particular  person  at  a  par- 
ticular moment  depends  on  innumerable  conditions  of  the 
past  and  of  the  present,  falling  under  the  categories  of 
heredity,  past  habit  formations,  and  present  health  of  his 
nervous  system,  all  difficult  to  know  exactly,  the  answer 
as  to  whether  he  has  or  has  not  been  teachable  at  some 
short  moment  can  never  be  better  than  relatively  true. 
Therefore  the  disagreement  among  those  answering. 


CHAPTER  VII 

How  THE  Other-One's  Developed  Nervous  Functions 
Show  Up  Anatomically. 

Interest  in  the  behavior  of  the  Other-One  is,  after  all, 
not  of  so  recent  origin  as  some  may  think.  The  Greek 
classics  and  Greek  archeology  show  us  that  the  ancients 
were — and  in  what  manner  they  were — interested  in  his  be- 
havior. They  thought  that  he  had  within  him  a  ruler  under 
whose  command  were  constantly  the  parts  of  his  body. 
This  ruler  M'as  a  gas-like,  shadowy,  substance  which  they 
called  his  soul, — psyche.  It  entered  his  body  at  birth,  at 
the  first  cry,  and  left  his  body  at  death.  Death  they  pic- 
tured as  a  shadowy  being,  sometimes  in  the  shape  of  a 
person,  sometimes  in  the  shape  of  a  butterfly  or  bird,  leaving 
his  mouth. 

While  this  shadow,  his  soul,  was  within  the  body,  it  was 
supposed  to  take  a  special  part  of  the  Other-One's  body 
for  its  residence.  What  part  this  was,  there  was  much  spec- 
ulation about.  Naturally  they  concluded  that  an  anatomical 
region  which  appeared  to  be  very  active  in  emotions,  was 
most  probably  the  seat  of  the  soul.  Since  we  often  breathe 
heavily  in  a  state  of  emotion,  the  chief  breathing  muscle. 
the  diaphragm,  was  thought  to  be  the  seat  of  the  soul. 

The  Greeks  called  the  diaphragm  "phren."  It  is  not 
very  strange  that  in  the  usage  of  language  the  seat  of  the 
sovil  became  confused  with  the  soul  itself.  In  the  language 
of  the  Greeks  phren  therefore  came  to  mean  soul.  This 
is  the  reason  why  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  phren- 
ologists, who  were  trying  to  put — and  with  some  success  did 
put — "psychology"  on  a  higher   scientific  level,  gave  it   a 

(151) 


152  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

new  name  and  called  it  "phrenolog>'."  Phrenology  like 
psycholog}'  literally  means  science  of  the  soul. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  those  eighteenth  century 
phrenologists  (especially  their  master,  Gall,  a  physician) 
had  nothing  in  common  in  ideals  or  purposes  with  the  char- 
latans who  have  been  going  under  the  same  name  during  the 
nineteenth  century,— and  even  to  the  present  day. 

Our  ancestors  from  the  northern  parts  of  Europe  thou- 
sands of  years  ago  located  the  soul,  not  like  the  Greeks  in 
the  diaphragm,  but  in  another  muscle  which  is  quite  active 
during  many  emotions.  So  they  developed  the  habit  of 
speaking  of  different  people  as  having  a  big,  soft,  hard, 
broken,  warm,  cold,  etc.  heart.  And  like  the  Greeks  they 
did  not  mean  thereby  a  muscle,  but  referred  to  the  Other- 
One's  soul. 

During  the  last  centuries,  with  the  rise  of  the  science  of 
anatomy,  even  popular  language  has  come  to  recognize  that 
the  Other-One's  behavior  depends  on  his  nervous  system 
more  than  on  any  other  part  of  his  body.  Popular  language, 
however,  does  not  speak  of  the  "nervous  system,"  mentions 
but  rarely  the  Other-One's  nerves,  and  speaks  usually  of 
his  "brain."    Why  is  that  so? 

The  brain  is  so  much  more  conspicuous  than  any  other 
part  or  parts  of  the  nervous  system  that  it  is  the  only  part 
for  which  there  exists  a  truly  popular  name,  the  very  name 
"brain."  One  can  buy  brains  in  the  butcher  shop.  Other 
parts  of  the  nervous  system  are  not  offered  for  sale  there 
as  such,  because  they  cannot  easily  be  removed  from  the 
carcass  and  handled  separately. 

The  question  which  readily  suggests  itself  and  which  this 
chapter  will  attempt  to  answer,  is :  Why  have  the  highly 
developed  nervous  functions,  with  which  we  have  become 
acquainted  in  the  previous  chapters,  led  to  making  a  part 
of  the  nervous  system  so  conspicuous  over  all  others?    The 


BEAIN  153 

functions  with  which  we  have  become  acquainted  are  re- 
flexes, instinctive  actions,  and  habits. 

The  fewer  instinctive  actions  and  habits  a  species  of  ani- 
mals can  show,  the  lower  it  is  placed  in  the  stage  of  evolu- 
tion. The  more  instinctive  actions  an  animal  has,  and  es- 
pecially the  more  habits  instead  of  mere  reflexes,  the 
higher  we  call  it.  In  general  higher  animals — everybody 
knows — also  have  a  larger,  lower  animals  a  smaller  brain. 

Reflexes,  instinctive  actions,  and  habits  depend — we  have 
learned — on  definite  structural,  architectural,  peculiarities 
of  the  nervous  system.  It  seems  interesting  and  promising, 
therefore,  to  raise  the  question  why  these  structural  peculi- 
arities should  result  in  the  remarkable  anatomical  con- 
spicuousness  of  one  bulky  mass  of  nervous  tissue,  that  is, 
in  a  "brain"  making  its  appearance, — and  a  brain  ever  in- 
creasing in  size.  Why  does  not,  in  the  process  of  evolu- 
tion from  lower  to  higher  animals,  merely  the  total  quan- 
tity of  scattered  conductive  tissue  increase,  but  remain 
scattered  thruout  the  body? 

Local  responses,  we  have  seen,  require  nothing  further 
than  reflex  paths,  which,  being  entirely  independent  of  each 
other,  may  be  located  anywhere  in  the  body  provided  the 
ends  of  each  path  are  in  the  proper  sensory  and  motor  points. 
Paths  serving  simple  reflexes  may  be  scattered  and  need 
not  become  conspicuous  save  to  the  investigator  armed 
with  a  microscope. 

But  the  necessity  of  a  number  of  muscular  actions  oc- 
curring in  concert  introduces  at  once  a  new  element  into 
the  anatomical  aspect  of  the  case.  An  animal  as  low  as  a 
worm  already  shows  this  new  feature  clearly.  In  our  figure 
of  the  bulk  of  the  nervous  system  of  an  earthworm,  showing 
its  anatomical  form  in  the  head,  the  middle  segments,  and 
the  tail,  we  see  lengthwise  a  series  of  black  nodes.  Each 
of  these  nodes  serves  one  of  the  segments  of  which  the 


154  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

worm  consists.  We  know  these  segments  well  from  mere 
observation  of  this  familiar  animal  with  the  naked  eye. 
For  the  locomotion  of  the  worm  it  is  essential  that  each 
of  the  segments  be  capable  of  contracting  separately  from 
all  the  others. 

Since  the  worm's  body  is  long  and  narrow,  we  expect 
that  successive  pieces,  from  the  front  to  the  rear,  should 
function  in  relative  independence.  To  make  this  still 
clearer,  let  us  remember  how  the  worm  moves  forward. 
The  abdominal  side  of  the  body  possesses  tiny  bristles  point- 
ing backwards,  so  that  no  part  of  the  body  easily  slides 
backwards  on  the  ground.  If,  then,  a  fraction  of  the  body, 
at  the  front  end,  lengthens  in  the  manner  which  everybody 
knows  from  observation,  the  front  end  must  be  pushed  for- 
ward. 

Suppose  now  the  first  half  of  this  front  end,  the  head, 
so  to  speak,  remains  inactive  on  the  ground,  but  the  second 
half  actively  shortens,  and  during  the  same  time  an  equally 


THB  NERVOUS  SYSTIOM   IN  THE  HEAD. 
MIDDLE  SEXJMENTS  AND  TAIL  OF  A   WORM. 

long  third  piece  directly  behind  actively  lengthens.  The 
effect  must  be  that  the  elements  of  the  second  piece  are, 
more  or  less,  pushed  forward. 


GANGLIONS  OF    A  WORM 


155 


If  now  the  third  piece,  which  has  just  extended  itself 
lengthwise,  contracts  lengthwise,  and  the  directly  following 
fourth  piece  lengthens  at  the  same  time,  while  all  the  rest 
of  the  body  remains  inactive  on  the  ground,  the  elements 
of  the  third  piece  are  pushed  forward,  more  or  less.  When 
in  the  same  way  the  fourth  and  every  succeeding  piece  has 
been  moved  forward,  we  can  say  that  the  worm  as  a  whole 
has  made  a  step  forward.  It  is  immediately  clear  that 
the  nervous  system  of  this  animal  must  be  so  constructed 
that  the  successive  pieces  can  function  in  relative  inde- 
pendence. They  must  be  nervously  furnished  in  such  a 
manner  that  they  can  function  like  so  many  separate  organs, 
that  each  as  a  whole  possesses  what  we  have  called  local 
responsiveness. 

Each  segment  must  have,  in  a  sense,  its  own  nervous 
system.  Therefore  there  are  visible  to  the  eye  as  many 
"nervous  systems"  or  "ganglions"  as  there  are  segments. 
The  "swelling"  (this  is  what  "ganglion"  literally  means), 
the  conspicuous  node,  results  from  the  fact  that  the  re- 
flex arches  of  the   segments    (in  each  of  which  there  are 


UAJ^ 


GROUP    FORMATION    IN    THE    NERVOUS    SYSTEM. 

naturally  many  muscle  fibers)  must  be  anatomically  pulled 
together  in  order  to  be  given  a  common  superposed  arch 
or  "center."     And  thus  they  form  a  relatively  bulky  and 


156  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

conspicuous  mass,  the  node,  the  gangHon.  In  our  figure 
"group  formation,"  which  is  of  course  a  mere  sketch  il- 
lustrating principles,  such  a  node  may  be  thought  to  be  the 
mass  of  nervous  tissue  included  in  the  dotted  ellipse  within 
which  the  point  S^ab  is  located. 

Observation  with  the  microscope  reveals  that  each  of 
these  ganglions,  even  at  "a"  in  the  figure  of  the  worm,  con- 
sists of  two  relatively  separate  parts,  we  may  say  of  a  right 
ganglion  and  a  left  ganglion.  Toward  the  head  this  double- 
ness  becomes  very  conspicuous,  and  the  nervous  cord  in 
the  region  marked  "b"  in  the  figure  assumes  a  ladder-like 
appearance.  In  the  head  region,  marked  "c",  the  two  halves 
of  the  cord  separate  so  widely  because  they  have  to  pass 
around  the  mouth  opening,  for  the  cord  in  the  invertebrate 
animals  is  located  on  the  ventral  side  of  the  animal ;  and 
the  mouth  opening  is  located  on  the  same  side  since  animals 
naturally  feed  from  the  ground.  In  front  of  the  mouth 
the  two  halves  of  the  cord  join  again  and  carry  the  two 
head  ganglions  (or  the  one  double  ganglion  of  the  head, 
if  we  prefer  to  say  so)  of  which  we  shall  have  to  speak  a 
little  farther  on  under  the  name  of  the  brain. 

The  fact  that  each  segment  of  the  worm  has  a  right  and 
a  left  ganglion,  is  easily  understood.  The  right  half  and 
the  left  half  of  each  segment  sometimes  function  in  relative 
independence.  This  is  the  case  whenever  in  the  region  of 
this  segment  the  worm  is  not  straight,  but  curved, — when 
the  path  of  the  worm  on  or  in  the  ground  is  curved  in 
this  place.  In  each  half  of  the  segment  the  muscle  fibers 
have  then  their  concertedness  of  action.  Each  half  may 
contract  without  the  other  contracting  too.  But  usually 
both  halves  act  in  concert,  and  for  this  purpose  the  "rung 
of  the  ladder"  vmites  the  two  ganglions. 

There  is  not  an  equally  pronounced  separation  between 
the  upper  and  the  lower  half  of  each  segmental  ganglion. 


HEAD    GANGLIONS  157 

Why  not? — Animals,  generally  speaking,  live  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth  (only  exceptionally  above  or  below  its 
surface)  and  move  forward  or  to  the  right  or  the  left  on 
the  surface.  They  do  not,  in  general,  move  up  into  the 
air  and  down  into  the  ground,  notwithstanding  exceptions, 
of  which  the  very  earthworm  may  be  said  to  be  one.  Even 
the  earthworm,  in  its  wanderings,  obviously  turns  much 
more  frequently  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  than  down- 
wards or  upwards.  So  the  "local  response"  of  the  upper, 
or  lower,  half  of  the  segment  without  the  other  half  is 
not  an  action  for  which  special  provision  is  as  important 
as  for  the  local  response  of  each  of  the  lateral  halves. 

The  front  ganglion  and  the  next,  directly  behind  the 
mouth  opening,  are  larger  than  any  others.  Using  the 
customary  designation  "brain"  for  the  most  conspicuous 
mass  of  nervous  tissue  in  the  animal  body,  one  could  call 
these  two  ganglions  together,  at  "c",  or  the  frontal  gan- 
glion alone  the  worm's  brain.  But  the  very  fact  that  one 
hesitates  before  deciding  to  call  either  both  together  or  the 
frontal  one  alone  the  brain,  demonstrates  how  misleading 
this  very  appellation  really  is.  Apart  from  the  greater  size 
there  is  nothing  distinguishing  found  in  the  worm's  brain. 
The  function  is  of  the  same  kind  as  that  of  any  other  gan- 
glion. 

The  muscle  fibers  are  especially  numerous  in  an  animal's 
head.  They  act  there  in  especially  numerous  combinations, 
in  many  varied  forms  of  concert.  Not  only  are  movements 
of  the  head  of  great  importance  for  locomotion — the  rest 
of  the  body  follows  where  the  head  goes — ,  but  there  are 
in  the  head  also  the  mouth  organs  which  move  while  taking 
in  the  food.  And  because  of  the  importance  of  the  muscle 
actions  occurring  in  the  head,  it  is  only  natural  that  there 
are  placed  there  also  very  numerous  sensory  points,  whose 
stimulation    calls    forth    those    varied    muscular    reactions. 


158  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-OXE 

The  large  size  of  the  head  ganglions  is  simply  the  result  oi 
the  multiplicity  of  forms  of  concertedness  among  a  multi- 
plicity of  reflex  functions  of  the  head  segment, — with  ">ne 
exception. 

This  exception  consists  in  the  need  of  having  a  certaiu 
concertedness  of  all  the  segments  of  the  body  established 
in  such  a  manner  that  this  total  concertedness — or  integra- 
tion— depends  on  stimuli  received  by  the  head  rather  than 
ovi  stimuli  received  by  any  other  part  of  the  body.  The 
head — that  is,  the  part  that  moves  in  front  of  all  the  other 
parts — is  more  likely  than  any  other  part  to  receive  any 
kind  of  stimuli  for  the  reason  that  it  moves  toward  these 
stimuli.  And  the  head  will  also  receive,  in  general,  the  most 
significant  stimuli.  To  give  a  simple  illustration,  having 
gone  into  a  cul-de-sac,  it  is  the  head,  obviously,  which  will 
receive  whatever  stimuli  may  be  characteristic  of  this  pe- 
culiar situation,  which  demands  that  for  the  time  being 
the  tail  assume  the  role  of  the  head  and  take  the  lead  in 
the  locomotion. 

Since  the  sense  organs  of  the  head  are,  then,  the  m.ost 
important  sense  organs  for  this  total  concertedness  of  ac- 
tion, it  is  quite  natural  that  by  the  superposed  arches  serv- 
ing this  total  concertedness  all  the  lower  centers  should  be 
drawn  together  within  the  region  of  the  head  rather  than 
in  any  other  locality  of  the  body.  In  our  figure  "group 
formation"  these  superposed  arches,  the  highest  centers, 
are  represented  in  the  dotted  ellipse  within  which  the  points 
S^,  S*  and  M"*  are  found.  The  addition  of  the  nervous 
tissue  of  these  highest  centers  of  course  helps  to  make  the 
head  ganglions  relatively  still  more  big  and  conspicuous. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  no  particular  kind  of  functioning 
found  in  this  "brain"  which  cannot  be  found  in  the  other 
ganglions  too. 


GAXGLIOXS    OF    A    STAEFISH  15 


0 


<j 


A  starfish  presents  to  us  some  very  interesting  features. 
It  may  be  compared  with  a  collection  of  worms  having 
one  common  mouth.  As  our  figure  shows,  each  arm  of 
the  starfish  has  a  series  of  ganglions,  strung  on  a  cord,  so 
to  speak,  comparable  in  virtually  all  respects  with  the  series 
of  ganglions  of  the  worm.  But  when  at  the  ganglion  be- 
hind the  mouth  opening  the  cord  splits,  it  can  not  as  in 
the  worm  simply  unite  again  in  a  ganglion  before  the 
mouth,  but  on  the  right  it  becomes  identical  with  the  cor- 
responding left  branch  of  its  neighbor  cord,  and  on  the 
left  it  becomes  identical  with  the  corresponding  right  branch 
of  its  neighbor  cord. 


NEI:V<!r.<    :    .  .VIKNr    OF    A 
STARFISH. 


So  the  starfish  is  like  five  worms  having  a  common  mouth 
and  of  course  no  head,  and — what  interests  us  most — having 
a  common  "brain"  consisting  of  five  ganglions.  This  case 
shows  perhaps  even  more  strikingly  that  "brain"  does  not 
signify  anything  but  the  most  bulky  part  of  the  nervous 
system.  Instead  of  saying  that  the  starfish  has  one  brain 
consisting  of  five  ganglions,  we  can  just  as  well  say  that 
it  has  five  brains  whose  co-operation  is  brought  about  by 
a  cord  running  around  from  point  to  point  of  the  pentagon 
at  whose  corners  these  brains  are  situated. 


160  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

So  much,  however,  has  already  become  clear  to  us  that 
the  most  bulky  part  of  any  animal's  nervous  system — call 
it  brain  or  no — is  very  likely  to  be  the  location  of  the  high- 
est of  all  the  nerve  centers  which  an  animal  possesses.  And 
inversely,  the  higher  the  nerve  centers  possessed  by  an 
animal,  the  greater  seems  to  be  then  the  probability  that 
somewhere,  and  most  likely  in  the  head,  a  particularly 
bulky  mass  of  nervous  tissue  will  make  itself  conspicuous. 

We  need  not  prove  that  the  so-called  higher  animals 
possess  higher  nerve  centers  than  the  lower  animals,  for  the 
greater  complication  of  their  nervous  system  and  the  re- 
sulting greater  complexity  of  their  life  activities  is  the  very 
reason  why  certain  animals  are  called  higher  in  comparison 
with  others,  which  then,  of  course,  are  called  lower  animals. 
Thus  we  can  rewrite  the  last  sentence  of  the  preceding 
paragraph  as  follows :  The  higher  animals  are  more  likely 
than  the  lower  animals  to  possess  one  bulk  of  nervous  tis- 
sue which  makes  itself  particularly  conspicuous.  Or,  the 
higher  an  animal,  the  more  conspicuous  in  the  body  is  its 
brain  likely  to  be.  The  following  figures  will  illustrate  this 
statement  further. 

The  crayfish  is  an  animal  considerably  higher  than  the 
earthworm.  Yet  there  is  no  essential  difference  in  the 
conspicuous  anatomical  features  of  the  two  animals.  We 
notice,  however,  that  the  ganglions  before  and  directly  be- 
hind the  mouth  opening  are  relatively  bigger.  This  is  to 
be  expected,  because  the  crayfish  has  numerous  appendages. 
Each  of  these  appendages  consist  of  parts.  Each  of  these 
parts  may  at  times  have  to  react  in  relative  independence 
of  the  other  parts,  that  is,  in  a  local  reaction.  But  all  the 
parts  often  have  to  act  concertedly,  while  yet  the  whole  ap- 
pendage, of  which  tl"iey  are  a  part,  acts  locally,  that  is, 
independently  of  the  other  appendages.  Very  often  two 
appendages,  especially  those  located  symmetrically  at  the 


GANGLIONS  OF  A  CRAYFISH 


161 


two  sides  of  the  body,  act  in  concertedness.  Very  often 
a  still  greater  number  of  appendages  act  in  concert,  es- 
pecially when  responding  to  stimulation  occurring  at  the 
sense  organs  of  the  head,  which  are  here  much  more  elab- 
orate than  they  are  in  the  worm.  So  the  large  size  of  the 
head  ganglion  results  directly  from  the  need  of  system- 
atized multiple  conduction  paths  which  place  the  muscles 
in  varied  ways  at  the  disposal  of  the  sense  organs. 


'j'M))Pr-»))i)ii 


NERVOUS   SYSTEM   OF  A   CRAYFISH. 

The  vertebrates  have,  in  their  head,  sensory  and  motor 
organs  of  still  greater  significance  than  those  found  in  the 
head  of  the  articulate  and  lower  animals.  The  reflex  arches 
of  all  of  these,  and  also  of  the  sensory  and  motor  points  of 
the  remainder  of  the  body,  must  be  united  into  groups, 
and  these  groups,  again,  must  enter  into  manifold  com- 
binations in  order  to  serve  the  more  varied  needs  of  a 
more  richly  furnished  organism.  Accordingly  we  find  in 
the  head  of  a  fish  a  particularly  large  accumulation  of  nerve 
centers.    The  fact  that  this  "brain"  results  from  the  forma- 


BRAIN  OF  A  FISH. 


tion  of  groups  of  reflexes,  and  groups  of  these  groups,  and 
higher  groups  again,  is  very  apparent  to  the  eye.  The 
brain  appears  clearly  as  an  agglomeration  of  numerous  gan- 


162  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

glions.  In  some  of  them  the  division  into  a  right  and  a 
left  ganglion  is  very  striking.  We  have  seen  that  this  di- 
vision is  very  natural  because  of  the  frequent  necessity  of 
local  responsiveness  on  either  side  alone. 

The  reader  has  undoubtedly  noticed  that  A  in  the  figure 
shows  a  side  view  of  the  same  ganglions  which  in  B  are  seen 
from  above. 

We  have  mentioned  that  the  reflexes  of  the  parts  of  the 
body  other  than  the  head  must  be  well  co-ordinated  with 
those  serving  the  head  itself,  so  that  the  forward  part  of 
the  body  may  be  in  more  than  a  mere  geometrical  sense 
the  leader  of  the  body.  However,  there  are  certain  reflexes 
which  do  not  require  a  particularly  close  connection  with 
those  of  the  head.  They  are  the  reflexes  which  serve  the 
so-called  vegetative  or  visceral  functions  of  the  body.  Let 
us  make  this  clear  by  examples. 

The  approach  to  an  article  of  food  lying  in  the  neigh- 
borhood is  controlled  mainly  by  the  reflexes  within  the 
head;  it  is  a  response  to  sights,  sounds,  odors,  tastes  re- 
ceived by  the  sense  organs  of  the  head.  But  the  approach 
could  not  take  place  without  the  co-operation  of  the  re- 
flexes on  which  the  locomotor  organs  depend  for  their  func- 
tion ;  and  these  organs  are  to  be  found  in  the  remainder 
of  the  body  rather  than  in  the  head.  So  there  must  be  here 
a  close  connection  between  reflexes  within  and  reflexes  with- 
out the  head.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  scarcely  any 
reason,  why,  for  example,  the  intestinal  activity  of  digest- 
ing food  should  be  influenced,  enhanced,  or  impaired  during 
the  time  of  this  or  any  other  specially  directed  locomotion 
of  the  body,  or  why  this  special  locomotion  should  be  in- 
fluenced by  the  intestinal  activity,  save  the  extreme  cases 
of  an  empty  or  an  already  overloaded  stomach,  to  use 
familiar  language.  We  are  not  surprised,  then,  to  find  in 
any  animal  the  visceral  nervous  system  (often  called  "auto- 


GANGLIONS    OF  LOWER  VERTEBRATES 


163 


nomic,"  that  is,  "self-governing")  rather  separated  from  the 
remainder,  and  to  find  in  the  nervous  accumulation  of  the 
head  which  we  call  the  brain  "the  center"  not  so  much  of 
the  whole  nervous  system,  but  only  of  a  part,  altho  by  far 
the  largest  part,  of  the  nervous  system  of  an  animal. 

In  comparing  further  vertebrates,  higher  than  the  fishes, 
our  interest  is  confined  to  this  part  of  the  nervous  system 
w^hich  is  accumulated  in  the  head.  We  notice  that  the  dif- 
ferent ganglions  of  the  "brain,"  passing  from  lower  to 
higher  animals,  do  not  grow  in  equal  proportions.  We  must 
give  these  ganglions  names  in  order  to  be  able  to  refer  to 
them  severally.  Our  figures,  each  of  which  gives  a  side 
view.  A,  and  a  view  from  above,  B,  contain  their  ordinary 
anatomical  names.  There  are  five  subdivisions  from  front 
to  back,  of  which  three,  the  frontal  ones,  are  more  obviously 
divided  into  a  right  and  a  left  half  than  the  other  two.  The 
ganglions  of  the  brain  are  frequently  also  called  lobes. 
Thus  "ol"  in  the  figure  means  "optical  lobe,"  "of"  stands 
for"  olfactory  lobe."  Of  the  other  abbreviations  "m" 
means  the  "medulla,"  joining  the  cord,  also  called  bulb 
because  of  its  shape.  The  "cerebellum'  or  small  brain 
is  marked  "cb.  the  "cerebrum"  or  large  brain  "CER." 

Compare  with  these  ganglions  of  the  fish  those  of  the 
frog.  Their  relative  size  has  changed  in  favor  of  one,  the 
cerebrum.     This  is  still  more  obvious  in  a  still  higher  an- 


A  B 

RK.\IN    OF    A    FUon. 

imal,  a  bird.  The  two  halves  of  the  cerebrum,  the  so-called 
hemispheres,  are  now,  especially  in  the  view  B,  from  above, 
the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  whole.     The   same   de- 


164 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


velopment  continues  when  we  pass  to  the  brain  of  a  mam- 
mal. The  hemispheres  of  the  cerebrum  begin  to  look  as 
if  they  were  the  whole  brain.  The  optical  lobes  have  in- 
deed been  so  completely  overlapped  by  the  ever  growing 
hemispheres  that  they  have  disappeared  from  sight. 


BRAIN  OF  A   BIRD. 


This  continued  growth  of  the  same  single  ganglion — 
quite  aside  from  a  continuous,  but  less  marked  growth  of 
all  others — thru  the  various  stages  of  evolution  of  the 
vertebrates  illustrates  a  principle  different,  as  we  have  said, 


BRAIN    OP   A   LOWER   MAJMMAL. 

from  that  which  requires  a  bulkier  nervous  system  for  an 
animal  possessing  a  greater  number  of  sensory  and  motor 
points.  This  continued  growth  of  a  single  ganglion  can 
have  a  meaning  only  if  the  ganglion  thus  growing  does 
not  serve  any  peripheral  points  directly,  but  exclusively,  or 
almost  exclusively,  indirectly.  This  growth  can  have  a 
meaning  only  if  the  ganglion  serves  by  interconnecting 
neuron  groups  already  severally  unified, — if  it  serves  by 
unifying  them  into  further  derived  groups,  as  illustrated  by 
the  scheme  of  our  figure  "group  formation."    The  growth 


CEKEBBAL  HEMISPHERES 


165 


of  this  ganglion,  then,  enables  the  animal  more  and  more 
to  react  at  any  motor  point  to  an  excitation  occurring  at  any 
sensory  point  whatsoever,  without  losing  its  indispensable 
local  responsiveness. 


THE    NERVOUS  SYSTEM   OF  MAN. 


If  we  compare  in  our  next  figure  the  bulky  part  of  the 
nervous  system  of  man  (that  is,  the  part  which  can  be  cut 
out  of  the  body  with  comparative  ease)  and  the  bulky  part 
of  the  nervous  system  of  a  worm  in  a  previous  figure,  we 
see  that  they  are  not  unlike  in  appearance.  However,  to 
a  nervous  system  like  that  of  the  worm  man  has  appended 
the  enormous  mass  of  nervous  tissue  of  the  cerebral  hem- 
ispheres (and,  we  might  add,  the  considerable,  tho  lesser. 


166  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

mass  of  the  cerebellum)  serving  no  other  purpose  than  that 
explained  in  the  last  paragraphs. 

Along  the  two  sides  of  the  spinal  cord  there  are  two  rows 
of  ganglions  somewhat  separated  from  the  cord.  They  re- 
call to  our  mind  the  longitudinal  series  of  ganglions  serving 
the  segments  of  the  worm.  Man,  like  all  vertebrates,  no 
longer  is  an  animal  consisting  of  so  many  segments,  but  his 
nervous  system  still  preserves  the  reminiscences,  so  to 
speak,  of  an  earlier  stage  of  evolution.  And  the  doubleness 
of  the  row  reminds  us  that  even  in  man,  or  especially  in 
man,  either  side  of  the  body  often  functions  independently 
of  the  other.  Many  of  man's  activities,  it  is  true,  are  of 
the  symmetrical  kind,  requiring  co-operation  of  the  motor 
organs  symmetrically  situated.  But  not  a  few  of  his  ac- 
tivities are  one-sided.  The  reflex  paths  of  a  certain  region 
of  either  side  are  therefore  united  in  a  ganglion  before 
coming  into  connection  with  the  nervous  conductors  of  the 
spinal  cord. 

The  body  of  man  as  we  know  it  in  life's  activities  con- 
sists essentially  of  only  three  longitudinal  segments,  the 
head,  the  upper  part  of  the  trunk  with  the  arms,  and  the 
lower  part  of  the  trunk  with  the  legs.  One  could  deduce 
this,  without  knowing  man's  body,  from  merely  observing 
the  crowding  of  nervous  tissue  in  the  brain,  the  cervical 
region  of  the  spinal  cord,  and  the  lumbar  region. 

In  the  next  figure,  showing  the  human  brain  without  the 
cord,  we  see  still  more  strikingly  the  enormous  development 
of  the  cerebral  hemispheres  as  compared  with  the  cerebrum 
of  the  lower  vertebrates  shown  in  the  previous  figures.  This 
ganglion,  the  cerebrum,  has  grown  to  such  an  extent  that 
it  hides  practically  all  the  other  parts  of  the  brain, — the 
other  head  ganglions  which  are  relatively  so  conspicuous  in 
the  fish,  the  frog,  and  the  bird.  The  cerebral  hemispheres 
have  in  the  mammals  already  fallen  sideways  over  the  other 


BRAIN    OF     MAN" 


167 


original  ganglions  of  the  brain.  In  man  they  have  further 
grown  in  the  forward  direction.  They  have  done  this,  how- 
ever, by  first  growing  upwards  and  then  falling  in  the  man- 
ner of  a  stocking  cap  forward  over  themselves.  This  ap- 
pears clearly  in  the  view  A  of  the  brain  of  man.  Thus  on 
both  sides  the  large  Sylvian  (named  after  a  seventeenth 
century  anatomist,  Sylvius)  fissure  has  been  formed,  at  S 
in  the  figure.  Only  toward  the  back  a  piece  of  the  cere- 
bellum and,  below,  a  part  of  the  bulb  or  medulla  are  still 
left  uncovered  and  observable  as  separate  ganglions. 

The  cerebrum  has  become,  as  it  were,  the  whole  brain. 
Its  growth,  taking  place  in  the  brain  exactly  there  where 
the  most  pronounced  growth  took  place  during  the  im- 
mediately preceding  period  of  evolution,  has  every  time 
served  to  make  possible  additional  interconnections  of  the 
highest  centers  by  still  higher  centers.  Thus  the  growth 
has  served  to  bring  about  an  ever  increasing  possibility  of 
the  seemingly  most  unrelated  sensory  and  motor  points 
becoming  functionally  related.  Thus  almost  any  imaginable 
habit  can  become  established  during  life,  since  its  indis- 
pensable prere^"*'^'*'^  is  in  existence,  a  nervous  path — tho 


A  B 

BRAIN    OF    MAN. 

long  and  roundabout  and  therefore  of  weak  conductivity 
— from  this  or  these  sensory  points  to  this  or  these  motor 
points. 


168  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

We  need  not  suppose,  however,  that  in  this  process  of 
complication  identical  with  unification,  evolution  has  reach- 
ed its  highest  possible  mark.  We  should  overestimate  our 
race  if  we  thought  so.  There  are  many  indications  that 
the  functions  of  innumerable  reflexes  are  still  practically 
independent  of  the  function  of  those  which  are  already  ef- 
fectively unified  by  their  connections  with  the  brain  and 
especially  with  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  For  example,  it 
seems  a  hopeless  task  to  try  to  train  the  Other-One  so 
that,  on  telling  him  that  his  heart  should  beat  a  little  more 
slowly,  one  can  observe  a  decrease  of  the  pulse  rate.  Fore- 
telling in  what  direction  evolution  will  proceed,  is  of  course 
vain  speculation. 

Speaking  of  the  evolution  of  the  human  race,  one  must 
not  forget,  however,  that  not  all  human  individuals  are 
alike.  Great  variations  undoubtedly  occur  in  the  amount 
of  the  various  functional  properties,  of  which,  as  we  have 
explained  in  the  previous  chapters,  neurons  are  capable. 
Great  variations  are  also  possible  anatomically.  And  these 
latter  variations  concern  us  particularly  at  this  moment. 

Not  all  individuals  have  the  various  higher  and  the  very 
highest  centers  equally  furnished  with  neurons.  If  there 
is  a  deficiency  in  the  number  of  neurons  here  or  there,  many 
kinds  of  habits  will  establish  themselves  only  in  a  very  in- 
direct and  roundabout  way,  that  is,  very  slowly,  or  even 
not  at  all.  We  speak  of  people  whose  capacities  for  es- 
tablishing habits  are  limited,  in  general  as  being  less  in- 
telligent. More  about  the  meaning  of  the  "intellect"  or 
"intelligence"  will  be  said  in  a  later  chapter.  At  this  mo- 
ment it  suffices  to  hint  at  the  fact  that  intelligence  and  lack 
of  intelligence  have  their  anatomical  foundations. 

That  there  should  exist  a  rather  definite  relation  between 
the  amount  of  conductive  tissue  present  in  the  brain  and 
the  "amount  of  intelligence"  or  the  quality  of  intelligent 


BEAIN   AND  INTELLIGENCE  169 

behavior  of  which  a  person  was  capable,  occurred  to  those 
familiar  with  the  anatomy  of  the  brain  long  ago.  The 
phrenologists  worked  on  the  problem  unsuccessfully.  Dur- 
ing the  nineteenth  century  the  problem  assumed  the  sim- 
pler form  of  an  estimation  of  an  animal's  or  person's  general 
intelligence  on  the  basis  of  his  brain  weight. 

Of  course,  after  an  animal's  brain  has  been  removed 
from  the  skull  and  weighed,  that  individual  animal  is  dead. 
Knowledge  of  its  former  intelligence  is  then  of  little  prac- 
tical value.  But  if  by  weighing  many  brains  of  a  species 
and  determining  the  average  brain  weight  of  the  species 
one  could  discover  the  average  intelligence  of  that  species, 
this  would  still  be  of  considerable  practical  value.  For 
example,  in  choosing  a  watch  dog  for  our  house  or  herd, 
we  should  not  hesitate,  other  things  being  equal,  to  take 
our  choice  between  two  species  if  the  average  intelligence  of 
one  of  these  groups  could  be  proved  to  be  greater  than  that 
of  the  other. 

With  respect  to  human  beings  there  are  many  similar 
questions  concerning  group  problems,  that  is,  social  prob- 
lems, on  which  such  a  measurement,  if  it  existed,  of  the 
average  intelligence  of  a  group  could  shed  light.  There 
are  traditions,  customs,  and  even  laws,  which  are  based 
on  the  belief  of  an  innate  difference  of  intelligence  between 
the  various  human  races.  And  there  are  traditions  and 
laws  relating  to  the  two  sexes  which  are  wholly  or  partly 
based  upon  the  belief  of  an  innate  inferiority  of  one  of 
the  sexes.  Since  the  beginning  and  still  more  since  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  these  problems  have  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  not  a  few  careful  investigators. 

A  large  number  of  brains  of  men  and  women  have  been 
weighed.  It  has  been  found  that  the  average  male  brain 
is  somewhat  heavier  than  the  average  female  brain.  In 
making  the  comparison,  the  investigator  chooses,  of  course, 


170  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

the  brains  of  as  homogeneous  a  class  of  people  as  possible. 
The  following  values  are  taken  from  such  an  investigation 
made  years  ago  in  an  English  workhouse.  The  average 
weight  of  adult  females  was  found  to  be  1212  grams,  and 
the  average  of  males  1335  grams.  If  absolute  brain  weight 
is  an  indicator  of  intelligence,  the  advantage  is  here  de- 
cidedly on  the  side  of  the  males. 

The  conclusion  just  mentioned  has  several  times  during 
the  nineteenth  century  been  drawn  by  investigators.  How- 
ever, toward  the  end  of  the  century  the  relativity  of  such 
measurements  became  sufficiently  recognized,  so  that  in- 
vestigators measured,  not  only  the  brain  weight,  but  also 
the  body  weight  of  the  same  individuals.  We  ought  to 
be  aware  of  the  fact  that  large  animals,  like  cattle,  have 
and  must  have  a  more  voluminous  nervous  system  than 
small  animals,  like  rats,  without  being  on  that  account  more 
intelligent. 

Another  investigator  therefore  measured  also  the  body 
volume  in  the  simplest  and  most  natural  way,  by  weighing 
it,  as  he  determined  the  brain  volume  simply  by  weighing  it. 
He  found  as  average  brain  volumes  for  females  1224  grams 
and  for  males  1431  grams.  As  average  body  volumes  he 
found  from  the  same  individuals  for  females  54.8  kilograms 
and  for  males  66.2  kilograms.  These  data  will  form  the 
basis  of  all  our  following  considerations.  Having  the 
average  weight  of  the  brain  and  of  the  whole  body,  one 
easily  computes  the  percentage  of  the  brain  volume  within 
the  whole  body  volume.  This  is  found  to  be  2.23  in  fe- 
males and  2.16  in  males. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  those  who  were  particularly 
interested  in  drawing  practical  conclusions  from  determina- 
tions of  male  and  female  brain  weight,  never  drew  any 
conclusions  from  the  values  last  mentioned.  If  formerly 
the  absolutely  larger  brain  of  males  was  a  "scientific  proof" 


MALE    AND   FEMALE   BRAINS  171 

of  the  superiority  of  male  intelligence,  why  were  these 
values  no  "scientific  proof"  of  the  inferiority  of  male  in- 
telligence? One  wonders  if  the  fact  that  those  drawing 
or  not  drawing  these  conclusions  were  men,  has  any  sig- 
nificance in  this  connection. 

A  convenient  way  of  making  the  comparison  is  to  divide 
the  value  found  for  females  by  the  value  found  for  males. 
In  order  to  avoid  decimals,  let  us  choose  as  denominator 
a  thousand  rather  than  one.  Then,  if  the  numerator  is 
larger  than  1000,  it  speaks  in  favor  of  the  female  sex. 
If  it  is  smaller  than  1000,  it  favors  the  male  sex.  A  com- 
parison of  the  absolute  brain  volumes  thus  gives  us  the  fol- 
lowing quotient : 

Female  Brain         855 


Male  Brain  1000 

A  comparison  of  the  brain  volumes  relative  to  the  body 
volumes  gives  us  the  following  quotient : 

Female   Brain  Volume 


Female  Body  Volume  1033 


Male  Brain  Volume  1000 


Male  Body  Volume 

We  see  here  that  the  pendulum,  so  to  speak,  has  swung 
to  the  other  side. 

Toward  the  last  few  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
doctrine  that  the  nervous  system  was  a  conductive  connec- 
tion between  the  sense  organs  and  the  muscles  and  not  the 
mysterious  seat  of  any  autocratic  governing  power,  began 
to  be  fully  and  generally  accepted  even  by  those  who  were 
specially  interested  in  the  problem  of  the  comparison  of 
brain  measurement  and  intelligence  measurement.  They 
began  to  recognize  the  importance  of  the  fact  that  for 
"intelligence"  certain  sense  organs  are  of  less,  other  sense 


172  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

organs  of  the  greatest  importance,  and  that  the  latter  are 
not  distributed  all  thru  the  body,  but  lie  mainly  on  or  near 
the  surface  of  the  body.  Roughly  speaking,  one  may  say 
that  the  number  of  these  here  significant  sensory  points 
increases  proportionately  with  the  increase  of  an  animal's 
surface. 

Of  the  skeletal  muscles  it  may  be  said  that  they  form  the 
bulk  of  the  whole  body.  The  nervous  system,  in  so  far 
as  it  serves  these  muscles,  may  be  regarded  as  serving  the 
body  well  enough  if  its  increase  keeps  step  with  the  in- 
crease of  the  body  volume.  If  the  body  volume  increases 
out  of  proportion  to  the  brain, — too  bad  for  the  animal's 
intelligence,  as  in  the  case  of  the  human  males  in  the  last 
quotient. 

But  in  so  far  as  the  conductive  tissue  serves  the  surface 
sense  organs,  one  must  say  that  it  serves  them  well  enough 
only  if  its  volume  keeps  step  with  the  increase  of  the  size 
of  the  animal's  surface.  Now  if  we  are  not  interested  at 
all  in  the  absolute  size  of  the  body  surface,  but  only  in 
the  question  how  a  small  and  for  all  its  parts  proportional 
increase  in  an  animal's  size  would  increase  its  surface,  we 
do  not  have  to  take  any  new  measurement,  but  have  merely 
to  make  a  computation. .  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  ratio  of 
surface  to  surface  is  all  we  are  interested  in.  The  surfaces 
separately  do  not  concern  us.  And  the  ratio  of  the  surfaces 
can  easily  be  computed,  when  we  know  the  ratio  of  the 
volumes.    It  is  the  square  of  the  cube  root  of  the  latter. 

The  above  stated  quotient,  which  yielded  the  ratio  1033 
to  1000,  can  also  be  written  thus: 

Male  Body  Volume  Female  Brain  Volume 

Female  Body  Volume   ^        Male  Brain  Volume 

Now  we  know  that  the  ratio  of  these  body  volumes  is 
1208  to  1000,  the  same  as  66.2  kilograms  to  54.8  kilograms. 


BKAIN  WEIGHT  AND  BODY  SUEFACE  173 

The  square  of  the  cube  root  of  1.208  is  1.134.  Then  we 
get  the  following  comparison  of  the  brain  volumes  relative 
to  the  body  surfaces : 

Male  Body  Surface  ^  Female  Brain  Volume__^  1-"4V  ^^:=  970 
Female  Body  Surface^    Male  Brain  Volume  '  '^    ^  1000      1000 

We  see  here  that  the  pendulum  has  again  swung  back, 
in  favor  of  the  male.  But  at  the  same  time  we  notice  that 
each  time  the  numerator  differs  less  from  a  thousand  than 
the  last  time,  speaking  more  in  favor  of  an  equality  of  the 
sexes  in  intelligence.  It  has  changed  from  855  to  1033  and 
back  again  as  far  as  970. 

Now,  really,  the  surface  alone  does  not  any  more  than 
an  animal's  volume  alone  determine  how  much  nervous 
tissue  is  needed  to  serve  the  whole  animal  well.  Considering 
the  volume  alone,  the  value  of  the  quotient  was  in  favor 
of  the  female.  Considering  the  surface  alone,  the  value 
of  the  quotient  was  in  favor  of  the  male.  Considering 
both,  the  value  must  lie  close  to  1.  That  is,  neither  sex 
has  any  advantage  over  the  other.  About  the  same  con- 
clusion follows  from  considering  all  three  quotients. 

It  seems  strange  that  attempts  should  ever  have  been 
made  to  deduce  an  intellectual  inferiority  of  either  sex  from 
anatomical  features.  Our  understanding  of  the  functioning 
of  the  nervous  system,  notwithstanding  the  progress  which 
has  been  made  during  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years,  is 
still  extremely  imperfect.  We  are,  and  ought  to  be,  very 
elated  whenever  we  discover  that  our  theories  of  nervous 
functioning  find  an  additional  support  in  those  facts  of  the 
Other-One's  behavior  which  we  have  newly  discovered  or 
to  which  we  have  only  recently  learned  to  pay  proper  atten- 
tion. It  is  sheer  folly  to  proceed  the  other  way  and  to  ap- 
ply to  real  life  conclusions  from  our  theories  of  nervous 
functioning  combined  with  our  meager  anatomical  knowl- 
edge.   If  we  draw  conclusions  for  our  own  instruction  mere- 


174  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

ly,  in  order  to  test  our  theories,  this  is  all  right.  But  to  pub- 
lish such  deductions  and  to  invite,  or  thru  the  lack  of  proper 
warning  even  only  to  permit,  the  public  to  regard  them  as 
facts  in  which  we  men  of  science  believe,  is  not  very  far 
from  criminal   negligence. 

The  public,  which  unavoidably  consists  of  groups,  of 
which  the  two  sexes,  the  various  races,  and  the  different 
nationalities  are  the  most  ponderous  examples,  is  always 
ready  to  nourish  its  prejudices  by  so-called  "scientific  proof." 
But  forms  of  behavior — and  "intellect"  or  "intelligence" 
are  nothing  but  forms  of  behavior — can  not  yet  be  deduced 
from  a  study  of  the  nervous  system  more  perfectly  than 
they  can  be  discovered  by  a  direct  study  of  the  Other- 
One's  behavior,  by  simply  watching  with  due  care  his  con- 
duct. 

That  men  and  women  are  different,  is  well  enough  known. 
In  so  far  as  their  organisms  function  differently,  their  in- 
herited forms  of  behavior  must  be  different.  In  so  far 
their  nervous  systems,  too,  must  be  different.  But  in  so 
far  as  their  organisms  do  not  function  differently  except 
by  accidents  of  habits  acquired — and  this  applies  to  every 
case  where  we  have  the  right  to  speak  of  intelligence — it 
would  be  nothing  short  of  a  miracle  if  nature  had 
equipped  them  thru  heredity  merely  because  of  their  sex 
difference  with  an  important  inequality  for  the  perform- 
ance of  the  same  work. 

Even  if  it  should  be  true — it  would  be  hard  to  prove  and 
thus  far  has  not  been  proved — that,  no  matter  what  the 
environment,  the  greatest  geniuses  of  mankind  could  not 
be  matched  by  any  which  might  arise  within  the  female 
sex,  that  argument  would  support  no  discrimination  be- 
tween the  sexes  by  law  and  custom.  Of  course,  no  one 
can  argue  for  an  equality  of  things  which  are  different,  and 
this  is  no  argument  asserting  that  the  two  sexes  are  not 


BKAIN    WEIGHT    IN   ANIMALS  175 

different.  The  argument  is  merely  that  brain  measurements 
do  not  prove  any  intellectual  difference  between  the  sexes. 
And  otherwise,  by  direct  observation  of  their  behavior  under 
equal  and  varying  conditions,  it  has  not  been  proved  either. 

The  comparison  between  brain  weight  relative  to  body 
volume  and  body  surface  on  the  one  hand  and  observable 
intelligence  on  the  other  can  be  attempted  with  animals  in 
the  same  manner  of  computing  the  quotients  as  we  have 
computed  them  for  the  two  human  sexes.  As  men  and 
women  do  not  have  bodies  of  essentially  different  propor- 
tions, so  animals  in  general  do  not  essentially  lose  their 
proportions  when  changing  in  the  course  of  evolution  to 
smaller  or  larger  sizes.  Think  of  different  dogs,  for  ex- 
ample. Or  think  of  the  deer  and  the  roe.  Or  think  even 
of  a  mouse  and  a  kangaroo.  The  proportions  are  nearly 
enough  the  same  to  compute  the  ratio  of  the  surfaces  di- 
rectly from  the  ratio  of  the  volumes,  that  is,  of  the  weights. 

Let  us  give  the  three  quotients  in  the  case  of  an  English 
terrier  and  a  Newfoundland  dog.  Their  body  weights  are 
5300  grams  and  38345  grams.  Their  brain  weights  are 
69  grams  and  120  grams.    The  three  quotients  are: 

575  4160  2151 


1000  1000  1000 

The  first  one  favors  greatly  the  Newfoundland,  the  second 
one  favors  enormously  the  terrier,  the  third  one  favors 
again  the  terrier,  but  much  less  than  the  second.  We  can 
leave  it  to  the  reader  to  decide  which  of  these  two  breeds 
is  the  more  intelligent,  and  how  this  follows  from  the 
quotients  based  on  comparison  absolute,  relative  to  body 
volume,  and  relative  to  body  surface. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The   Other-One's    Most    Interesting    Reflexes    and 

Instinctive  Actions. 

Any  particular  reflex  is  defined  by  stating  where  its  sen- 
sory point  and  its  motor  point  are  located  in  the  Other- 
One's  body,  for  example,  in  the  palm  of  the  hand  and  in 
the  muscles  bending  the  fingers  of  the  same  hand.  In  cer- 
tain cases  it  is  of  course  necessary  to  state,  either  instead 
of  or  in  addition  to  the  sensory  point,  the  quality  of  the 
stimulation,  for  example,  a  shrill  tone.  And  it  is  also  neces- 
sary in  certain  cases  to  state  the  qualitative  nature  of  the 
muscular  response,  for  example,  scratching,  or  in  another 
case  pressing  something  down.  But  generally  speaking  a 
sensory  point  and  a  motor  point  determine  a  definite  reflex. 

Since  the  reflexes  are  very  numerous,  any  science  con- 
cerned with  them  very  naturally  desires  to  classify  them. 
One  could  classify  them  with  reference  to  the  different 
sensory  points.  But  this  classification  would  be  of  ana- 
tomical rather  than  of  psychological  interest.  One  could 
classify  the  reflexes  with  reference  to  the  muscles  acting. 
But  this  classification  would  be  anatomical  and  physiological 
rather  than  psychological.  A  psychological  classification 
will  have  to  be  based  chiefly  on  the  service  rendered  by  the 
reflexes  in  the  Other-One's  life. 

It  is  well,  in  this  classification  of  the  fundamental  and 
therefore  inherited  forms  of  behavior,  to  make  no  distinc- 
tion between  reflexes  and  instinctive  activities.  A  classifica- 
tion based  on  services  rendered  need  not  take  into  account 
the  relative  complexity  of  the  inherited  nervous  functions. 

In  the  very  first  chapter  we  had  to  point  out  that  .'11 
animals  need  locomotion  in  a  straight  line  in  response  to 

(176) 


LOCALIZING   KEFLEX  177 

the  stimulus  of  lack  of  food.  We  added  later  to  this  form 
of  behavior  as  a  second  one  of  equally  fundamental  im- 
portance that  of  changing  the  direction  of  the  body  axis  in 
response  to  stimulation  coming  from  an  obstacle  lying  in 
the  animal's  path.  We  must  now  add  a  third  fundamental 
form  of  behavior,  that  of  making  a  localizing  movement. 
A  simple  illustration  of  the  localizing  reaction  is  found  in 
the  classical  experiment  usually  performed  in  a  beginner's 
course  in  physiology.  If  a  sour  substance  is  placed  in  con- 
tact with  the  skin  of  a  decapitated  frog,  that  foot  of  the 
animal  which  can  most  easily  reach  the  spot,  moves  to  the 
irritated  spot, — as  the  spectator  would  probably  say  "in 
order  to  wipe  off  the  irritating  thing." 

The  Other-One  is  equipped  by  Nature  with  such  reflexes 
that  he  acts  in  very  much  the  same  way  as  the  decapitated 
frog  does.  If  a  pin  pricks  his  left  shoulder,  the  right  arm 
moves  until  one  of  its  fingers  touches  the  point  stimulated. 
If  the  right  shoulder  is  pricked,  the  left  hand  moves  toward 
it.  If  the  upper  lip  is  tickled,  the  lower  lip  or  the  tongue 
moves  toward  the  spot.  If  the  left  ankle  is  irritated,  the 
right  foQ^  goes  towards  it.  In  every  case  that  part  of  the 
body  which  is  most  movable  in  the  direction  of  the  stim- 
ulated spot,  moves  toward  the  spot. 

What  becomes  of  the  localizing  reflex  in  those  senses  in 
which  the  stimulating  object  need  not  itself  approach  the 
skin,  but  may  and  usually  does  act  upon  the  body  surface 
from  a  distance?  The  most  important  sense  organ  of  this 
class  is  the  retina  of  the  eye.  It  is  clear  that  when  the 
Other-One  stands  before  an  apple  tree  and  the  red  light 
coming  from  an  apple  stimulates  a  certain  point  on  the 
lower  half  of  his  retina,  it  could  do  him  no  good  to  have 
his  finger  localize  that  point  on  his  retina.  The  finger  could 
not  touch  the  retina,  but  only  the  cornea,  the  frontal  layer 
of  the  eyeball.    Even  if  it  could  touch  the  retina,  however, 


1  78  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

no  advantag^e  could  result  comparable  to  that  of  wiping  off 
or  killing  an  insect  when  the  finger  localizes  a  spot  on  the 
skin.  An  advantage  could  result  only  from  approaching  the 
object  from  which  the  stimulus  emanates,  in  this  case  the  ap- 
ple. If  the  Other-One's  finger  approaches  it  enough  to  come 
in  contact  with  the  apple,  this  may  cause  the  apple  to  fall 
and  thus  to  become  available  to  him  as  food. 

When  we  introduced  as  the  third  fundamental  form  of 
animal  behavior  that  of  making  a  localizing  movement,  we 
might  at  once  have  distinguished,  and  we  do  now  distin- 
guish, two  subdivisions,  (1)  localizing  a  stimulated  point 
on  the  skin  by  that  part  of  the  body  which  is  most  movable 
in  the  direction  of  the  stimulated  point,  and  (2)  localizing 
a  distant  point  from  which  a  stimulating  effect  emanates  by 
that  part  of  the  body  which  is  most  capable  of  approaching 
along  the  line  from  the  animal's  body  to  that  point  of  eman- 
ation. As  in  the  first  of  these  subdivisions  of  the  localizing 
reaction,  so  in  the  second,  the  animal  must  be  equipped  by 
Nature  with  neuron  chains,  reflex  paths,  leading  the  ex- 
citation from  the  sensory  point  stimulated  to  that  motor 
point  (that  is,  set  of  muscles)  which  makes  the  particular 
localizing  movement  mechanically  possible. 

Of  all  the  senses  in  which  we  find  reflex  responses  of 
localizing  the  point  from  which  the  stimulating  effect  em- 
anates, the  visual  sense  is  by  far  the  most  important.  We  have 
already  referred  to  the  reflex  functioning  in  this  case  and 
shall  go  now  more  into  the  details.  The  refracting  trans- 
parent media  of  the  eyeball,  the  cornea  and  lens  especially, 
break  the  rays  of  light  so  that  the  whole  bundle  of  rays 
emanating  from  an  external  point  is  collected  again  on  the 
retina  in  approximately  a  single  point.  The  effect  of  the 
cornea  and  lens,  which  really  form  a  system  of  two  lenses 
strengthening  each  other,  is — apart  from  the  intensity  of 
the  light  admitted  to  the  interior  of  the  eyeball — very  much 


VISUAL    LOCALIZING    REFLEX  179 

the  same  as  if  the  eyeball  possessed  no  refracting  media  at 
all,  but  consisted  of  a  hollow  sphere  having  a  minute  hole 
in  front,  like  a  so-called  pin  hole  camera  used  for  certain 
kinds  of  photographic  work  where,  as  with  distant  land- 
scapes, light  intensity  is  unimportant  and  long  exposure  en- 
tirely feasible. 

Whenever  we  have  to  illustrate  by  a  diagram  any  function 
of  the  eyeball,  we  shall  always  represent  the  path  of  the 
light  as  if  the  eye  simply  had  a  pin  hole  in  front  (A  in  our 
figure)  instead  of  a  lens  (B  in  our  figure),  since  this  sim- 
plifies the  drawing  immensely.  It  makes  any  figure  more 
quickly  and  easily  comprehensible  because  there  is  only 
one  line  for  each  actual  bundle  of  light  rays.  And  it  per- 
mits equally  well  the  explanation  of  all  those  facts  in  which 
we  are  interested  as  psychologists.  It  is  clear  from  the 
figure  that  all  the  lines  of  light,  for  example,  xy,  cross  in 
the  pin  hole.  The  light  coming  from  above  falls  on  the 
lower  region  of  the  retina,  that  coming  from  the  left  side 
falls  upon  the  right  side  of  the  retina,  and  so  forth. 


A     PIN     HOLE     CAMERA     AND    A     LENS     CAMERA. 

Imagine  now  again  that  you  have  been  appointed  as- 
sistant to  the  Creator,  and  that  you  have  been  given  the 
task  of  constructing  a  nervous  system  enabling  the  Other- 
One  to  perform  the  localizing  reaction  when  light  strikes 
his  eye.  You  surely  would  connect  by  a  reflex  path  any 
point  on  the  lower  region  of  the  retina  with  those  muscles 
which  are  capable  of   moving  the  arm.  or  whatever  you 


180 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


choose  as  the  most  convenient  movable  limb  of  the  body, 
upwards.  The  lower  the  point  on  the  retina  which  is  stim- 
ulated, the  more  you  would  lead  the  reflex  path  in  the 
direction  of  those  muscle  fibers  which  are  capable  of  throw- 
ing the  arm  still  farther  up.  Your  task  is  no  more  difificult 
than  that  of  the  line  man  of  a  telephone  company. 

Exemplifying  the  second  form  of  the  localizing  move- 
ment— localization  in  the  direction  from  which  the  stim- 
ulating effect  emanates — we  spoke  of  the  visual  sense.  It 
must  not  be  inferred,  however,  that  this  is  the  only  sense 
organ  in  whose  function  this  localization  plays  a  role.  A 
very  important  kind  of  localizing  is  that  applied  to  a  sound- 
ing object.  The  Other-One's  right  ear  is  connected  by  a 
reflex  path  with  those  muscles  which  move  a  part  of  his 
body  most  easily  to  the  right ;  that  is,  generally,  those  mus- 
cles which  stretch  the  right  arm  toward  the  right.  His  left 
ear  is  connected  with  those  muscles  of  the  body,  especially 
those  of  the  left  arm,  which  may  bring  about  a  movement 
to  the  left. 

One  may  get  a  more  concrete  idea  of  the  working  of 
this  reflex  by  performing  a  rather  simple  experiment  with 
the  Other-One  which  consists  in  localizing  an  infinitesimally 


APPARATUS    FOK    LOCALIZING 
TELEPHONE    CLICKS. 

brief  tone.     Seat  him  comfortably  in  a  chair,  with  his  eyes 
closed.     Let   him,  after  the  usual   "ready"   signal,   hear  a 


AUDITORY  LOCALIZING  REFLEX  181 

telephone  click  and  ask  him  where  it  was  located.  Of 
course,  with  a  person  you  need  not  (although  you  may)  use 
in  this  experiment  the  original  reflex  of  pointing  in  this  or 
that  direction.  Instead  of  that  you  let  him  tell  you  in  words 
where  the  click  seemed  to  be  located.  You  use  for  the 
telephone  a  limited  number  of  positions,  say,  front,  back, 
left,  right  and  the  four  intermediate  positions  on  the  same 
level,  that  of  the  ears.  You  may  add  as  a  ninth  position 
that  of  above  the  head  of  the  Other-One;  and  still  further 
positions  if  you  like,  but  definite  ones  to  be  agreed  on  be- 
forehand. 

When  you  analyze  the  results  of  the  experiment  you 
find  that  the  (comparatively  few)  errors  made  by  the 
Other-One  never  consist  in  a  confusion  between  left  and 
right.  The  fact  that  the  total  number  of  errors  is  small, 
is  clearly  due  to  the  fact  that  in  addition  to  the  reflex  here 
in  question  the  Other-One  utilizes  various  other  reflexes, 
modified  into  habits,  for  his  reaction,  that  is,  for  telling  the 
direction  of  the  sound.  But  the  fact  that  there  is  once  in 
a  while  confusion  between  the  other  directions,  but  never 
between  right  and  left,  illustrates  the  working  of  the  local- 
izing reflexes  of  the  left  and  the  right  ears. 

In  the  sense  of  smell  we  have  localizing  reflexes  much  like 
those  in  the  sense  of  hearing.  They  do  not  play  a  great 
role  in  human  life,  because  man  does  not  use  the  sense  of 
smell  much  for  any  purpose.  The  greatest  use  which  can 
be  made  of  the  sense  of  smell  consists  in  its  application  to 
the  ground  and  the  things  on  the  ground.  Animals  can 
easily  use  this  sense  in  this  manner  by  simply  lowering  the 
head,  even  while  running  at  a  considerable  speed.  Man, 
in  his  usual  erect  position,  cannot  easily  apply  his  sense  of 
smell  to  the  ground  and  the  things  on  the  ground.  The  re- 
sult is  that  the  species  man  makes  so  little  use  of  this  sense 
in  comparison  with  animals,  for  example  with  dogs,  which 


182  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEK-ONE 

can  trace  another  animal  on  the  ground  hours  after  it  has 
passed.  Only  extraordinarily  strong  (relatively  strong) 
odors  affect  man. 

For  many  animals,  however,  these  reflexes  are  of  great 
usefulness,  especially  for  those  whose  nostrils  are  more  than 
man's  nostrils  exposed  sidewise.  A  volatile  substance 
present  in,  and  moving  with,  the  air,  has  then  a  chance  to 
stimulate  the  sensory  points  of  one  side  more  strongly  than 
those  of  the  other  side  and  to  call  forth  a  localizing  reflex 
movement  dominatingly  toward  one  side  of  the  body. 

As  for  localizing  sound,  so  for  localizing  odors  the  Other- 
One  and  animals,  too,  actually  use,  not  only  the  localizing 
reflex,  but  also  localizing  habits  derived  from  entirely  dif- 
ferent reflexes.  We  shall  return  to  this  fact  on  a  later  oc- 
casion when  these  other  reflexes  are  discussed. 

But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  fact  that  the 
Other-One  has  two  ears  and  two  nostrils  and  the  fact  that 
he  has  two  eyes.  With  respect  to  the  localizing  movement 
which  we  have  just  discussed  it  is  a  mere  luxury  to  have 
two  eyes.  One  would  be  sufficient.  The  second  is  there 
merely  for  the  sake  of  insurance  in  case  the  one  should 
get  broken.  On  the  other  hand,  the  proper  localizing  re- 
flex would  be  utterly  impossible  if  the  Other-One  had  one 
ear  only,  one  nostril  only.  Either  ear  is  to  be  compared, 
not  at  all  with  either  eye,  but  with  a  single  point  (of  the 
thousands  of  sensory  points)  of  a  single  eye.  Localizing 
with  the  ear  or  nostril,  where  there  are  virtually  not  thou- 
sands, but  only  two  sensory  points,  is  accordingly  restricted 
to  one  dimension ;  localizing  with  the  eye  is  extended  over 
two  dimensions.  (But  these  remarks  refer  only  to  the  local- 
izing reflexes.  Localizing  habits  not  derived  from  the  local- 
izing reflexes  and  being  of  more  than  two  dimensions  will 
be  discussed  later,  as  already  promised.) 


DIMENSIONS    IN    LOCALIZING  183 

We  have  a  chance  to  learn  in  this  connection  that  prob- 
lems— pseudo-problems,  we  should  prefer  to  say — which, 
if  the  old-fashioned  psychologists  were  not  puzzled  by 
them,  at  least  interested  them  enough  to  be  discussed  and 
"solved"  by  them,  entirely  disappear  and,  because  they  do 
not  exist,  call  for  no  solution  whatsoever.  The  older  psy- 
chologists used  to  raise  the  question,  in  all  seriousness: 
"Why  is  it  that,  altho  in  the  eye  (as  in  a  photographic 
camera)  the  picture  stands  upside  down,  we  'see'  the  image 
upright?"  The  old-fashioned  psychology'  used  to  ask  what 
we  "see"  or  what  our  selves  are  "conscious"  of.  But  we 
ask  in  this  book  what  the  Other-One  "does."  When  the 
lower  region  of  his  retina  is  stimulated,  his  arm  moves 
up,  because  Nature  gave  him  a  reflex  path  as  already 
described.  There  is  no  further  problem  left  for  solution, 
unless  you  call  "a  problem"  the  mere  fact  that  Nature  runs 
the  reflex  paths  thru  the  Other-One's  body  from  such 
points  to  such  points  that  the  stimulating  object  is  "local- 
ized." and  not  to  such  motor  points  that  the  resulting  move- 
ment is  wasted  because  it  fails  to  localize  the  stimulating 
object. 

A  simple  experiment  demonstrating  the  strength  of  the 
localizing  reflexes  can  be  performed  as  follows.  Think  of 
a  card  on  which  the  numbers  from  1  to  16  are  printed  con- 
secutively in  four  lines.  The  card  is  transparent.  You 
turn  it  over  vertically,  not  like  a  book  page,  and  look  at 
the  numbers  from  the  reverse  side.  The  numbers  appear 
then  as  in  our  accompanying  figure. 

Now  place  this  card,  as  it  appears  in  diminished  size  in 
the  figure,  before  the  Other-One  together  with  sixteen  little 
squares  which  you  have  obtained  by  cutting  another  card, 
exactly  like  this,  along  the  lines.  Make  him  look  at  the 
card  on  the  table  and  at  the  little  squares  in  his  hands  thru 
a  large  enough   (four  or  five  inch)   total  reflection  prism 


184 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


placed  so  that  it  turns  everything  upside  down  and  down- 
side up.  Then  all  the  numbers  appear  in  his  field  of  vision 
normal  and  those  on  the  large  card  appear  arranged  in  the 
regular  order  from  the  upper  left  to  the  lower  right  corner. 
Now  make  the  Other-One  distribute  the  squares  in  proper 
position  over  the  card.  He  is  thus  obliged  to  break  up  the 
reflex  and  substitute  the  habit  of  moving  his  hand  upwards 
when  the  upper  region  of  the  retina  is  stimulated,  down- 
wards when  the  lower  region  of  the  retina  is  stimulated. 


13 

H 

12 

19 

d 

10 

U 

13 

2 

9 

2 

8 

I 

3 

3 

t 

CARD    USED    IN    BREAKING    UP 
THE     LOCALIZING     REFLEX. 

If  we  take  the  time  required  for  each  successive  distribu- 
tion of  the  squares  over  the  card,  we  have  all  the  data  for 
the  construction  of  a  curve  of  habit  formation.  This  is 
interesting  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  previous  chapter 
in  which  we  discussed  the  learning  process.  But  the  reason 
for  mentioning  this  experiment  in  the  present  connection 
is  the  one  already  referred  to :  Nothing  could  impress  upon 
us  more  strikingly  the  existence  of  the  localizing  reflex 
than  the  performance  of  an  experiment  in  which  our  task 
consists  in  breaking  up  this  reflex,  changing  it  into  the 
reverse  reaction. 

One  of  our  statements  concerning  the  localizing  reflexes 
must  be  enlarged.  We  said  that  it  is  the  most  readily  mov- 
able part  or  limb  of  the  body  which  performs  the  localizing 


POSITIVE  AND    NEGATIVE    LOCALIZATION.  185 

movement.  Under  certain  conditions,  however,  it  may  hap- 
pen that  no  part  of  the  body  can  approach  the  point  to  be 
approached  more  easily  than,  or  even  as  easily  as,  the  body 
in  its  totality.  In  such  a  case  Nature  may  make  provision 
for  a  localizing  reflex  consisting  in  locomotion.  Generally 
in  such  a  case  there  is  first  a  turning  movement  until  the 
animal  faces  the  source  of  the  stimulus,  and  subsequently 
forward  locomotion  in  this  direction.  We  remember  at 
once  the  case  of  the  moth  already  discussed. 

We  have  thus  far  enumerated  three  forms,  fundamental 
and  inherited,  of  animal  behavior.  The  first  was  locomotion 
of  the  animal  in  a  straight  line  in  response  to  the  stimulus 
of  lack  of  food.  The  second  was  turning  in  response  to 
an  obstacle  lying  in  the  path.  The  third  was  localizing  a 
stimulus  on  the  body  surface  or  the  source  of  an  emanating 
stimulus  in  a  certain  outward  direction.  It  should  now  be 
added  that  the  localizing  movement  may  be  either  positive 
or  negative.  That  is,  the  reflex  movement  may  be  a  stretch- 
ing of  a  limb  or  appendix  of  the  animal  toward  the  source 
of  the  stimulus ;  but  it  may  be,  altho  this  is  probably  a  rarer 
case,  a  bending  and  consequently  a  withdrawal  of  the  ap- 
pendix from  the  source  of  the  stimulus.  In  either  case  the 
movement  would  be  along  the  same  line,  but  it  would  be 
either  in  one  or  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  distinction 
must  therefore  be  made  of  a  positive  and  a  negative  localiza- 
tion. This  distinction  becomes  especially  impressive  when 
the  localization  is  of  the  nature  of  a  locomotion  of  the 
whole  body :  The  animal  either  approaches  the  stimulus 
or  moves  away  from  it.  The  latter,  the  negative  localiza- 
tion is  obviously  quite  indispensable  in  the  presence  of 
certain  stimuli, — of  all  those  which  are  universally  dele- 
terious. 

Because  of  its  great  importance  this  negative  localization 
deserves  to  be  counted  as  a  special  class  of  reflexes.     Let 


186  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

US  therefore  count  "positive  localization"  as  the  third  and 
"negative  localization"  as  the  fourth  class  of  fundamental 
forms  of  behavior. 

We  now  have  to  add  a  fifth  fundamental  form  of  be- 
havior, that  of  grasping.  We  have  pointed  out  in  our  dis- 
cussion of  the  positive  localizing  reflexes  that  one  of  their 
services  consists  in  providing  the  organism  with  food.  If 
the  Other-One's  finger  approaches  an  apple  on  the  tree 
enough  to  come  in  contact,  the  apple  may  fall  and  thus  be- 
come available  as  food.  But  it  becomes  food  still  more  cer- 
tainly if  it  is  grasped  and  carried  toward  the  mouth.  The 
grasping  reflexes,  while  serving  still  other  purposes,  may 
therefore  be  regarded  chiefly  as  the  natural  companions  of 
the  positive  localizing  reflexes. 

In  describing  a  grasping  reflex,  as  in  describing  and  de- 
fining any  particular  reflex,  we  have  to  state  the  nature  of 
the  stimulus,  the  sensory  points  on  which  the  stimulus  acts, 
and  the  motor  points  which  respond.  The  motor  points  of 
the  body  are  to  be  found  in  this  case  in  the  flexor,  that  is, 
bending,  muscles  of  any  animal's  limbs.  The  sensory  points 
are  to  be  found  in  the  skin  on  the  concave  side  of  the  same 
limb  which  bends,  but  also  in  other  sense  organs,  for  ex- 
ample, the  taste  organ.  In  the  Other-One  the  sensory 
points  of  this  reflex  are  located  chiefly  in  the  palm  of  the 
hand,  including  the  corresponding  side  of  the  fingers,  and 
in  the  sole  of  the  foot.  The  stimulus  is  gentle  pressure. 
Strong  pressure  does  not  serve  this,  but  other  reflexes. 
Tickle  the  sole  of  a  sleeping  person,  and  the  limb  bends  in 
all  its  joints.  That  is,  the  toes  bend  and  the  bending  of 
the  leg  in  the  hip  and  knee  joints  brings  the  foot  closer  to 
the  trunk  of  the  body. 

When  it  happens  that  an  apple  stimulates  the  eye,  and 
the  localizing  reflex  causes  the  arm  and  fingers  to  approach 
the  apple  so  that  the  inner  surface  of  the  fingers  or  the 


GBASPING   REFLEX  187 

palm  of  the  hand  is  gently  stimulated  by  the  contact,  the 
bending  fingers  surround  the  apple  and  the  bending  of 
the  arm  in  the  shoulder  and  elbow  joints  brings  the  apple 
closer  to  the  body,  very  likely  into  the  neighborhood  of  the 
mouth.  Thus  the  localizing  and  grasping  reflexes  together 
accomplish  the  fulfillment  of  an  important  condition  for  the 
continuation  of  the  Other-One's  life. 

A  sixth  class  of  fundamental  forms  of  behavior,  for 
which  Nature  has  provided  in  the  nervous  system  many 
reflex  paths,  is  that  of  adjusting  the  sense  organs.  Per- 
haps the  simplest  example  of  adjusting  the  sense  organ  so 
that  its  usefulness  will  be  greatest,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Other-One's  cutaneous  senses.  Let  us  select  from  them 
for  this  discussion  the  sense  of  pressure  on  the  skin.  We 
shall  have  to  give  in  the  next  chapter  a  fuller  discussion  of 
the  fact  that  the  discriminative  capacity  of  the  skin  is 
greatest,  that  is.  that  the  threshold  is  smallest,  where  the 
curvature  of  the  surface  is  greatest,  that  is,  at  the  finger 
tips  and  the  lips. 

Accordingly,  when  the  Other-One  must  use  his  pressure 
sense,  as  when  he  has  to  find  his  way  in  the  dark,  or  when 
he  has  to  pick  up  food  in  the  dark  with  his  teeth  (he  is 
not  supposed  to  have  any  particular  table  manners),  it  is 
of  great  advantage  to  him  to  stretch  out  his  fingers  so  that 
the  things  among  which  he  has  to  find  his  way  come  in 
contact  first  with  his  finger  tips,  or  to  get  the  food  which 
is  to  pass  into  his  mouth  first  in  contact  with  his  lips.  It 
would  be  far  less  advantageous  to  him  if  the  contact  oc- 
curred on  his  knuckles  or  his  elbow  or  his  shoulder  or  his 
cheek,  where  his  ability  to  discriminate  is  relatively  de- 
ficient. 

The  Other-One  does  not  expose  his  lips  to  stimulation 
so  much  as  he  does  his  fingers.  But  animals  which  have  no 
discriminative  sensibility  on  those  extremities  which  cor- 


188  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

respond  to  the  Other-One's  finger  tips,  expose  their  lips 
to  stimulation  in  a  similar  manner  as  the  Other-One  does 
his  fingers.  Remember  how  a  horse  or  rabbit  applies  its 
lips  before  taking  anything  into  its  mouth,  or  how  an  ele- 
phant uses  the  tip  of  its  trunk  toward  a  similar  end.  In 
all  these  cases  the  animal  adjusts  its  cutaneous  sense  organ 
by  exposing  to  stimulation  that  part  where  the  threshold  of 
discrimination  is  smallest,  the   sensibility  greatest. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  adjustments  of  the  Other-One's 
visual  sense  organ.  There  are  three,  (1)  the  adjustment 
of  the  direction  of  the  axis  of  the  eye,  (2)  the  adjustment 
of  the  size  of  the  pupil,  (3)  the  adjustment  of  the  curv- 
ature of  the  lens. 

The  discriminative  sensibility  is  much  greater  in  the  cen- 
ter, the  fovea  (pit),  of  the  retina  than  in  its  peripheral 
parts.  If  an  object  stimulates  a  peripheral  point  on  the 
retina,  the  eye  muscles  surrounding  the  eyeball — of  which 
there  are  six,  three  pairs — contract  reflexly  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  the  axis  approaches  the  direction  of  the  beam  of 
light.  The  result  is  that  that  part  of  the  retina  is  exposed 
to  the  stimulation  where  the  discrimination  is  greatest, — 
the  central  part,  the  fovea.  The  service  of  this  reflex  is 
therefore  entirely  like  that  of  the  adjusting  reflex  in  the 
pressure  sense  of  the  skin. 

Since  both  eyes  are  adjusted  in  this  way,  the  result  is 
that  the  axes  of  the  eyes  form  an  angle,  the  so-called  angle 
of  convergence,  which  is  the  more  acute  the  greater  the  dis- 
tance of  the  object  whence  the  light  emanates.  When  the 
angle  of  convergence  is  very  small,  there  is  naturally  very 
little  difference  in  the  degree  of  contraction  of  the  antago- 
nistic muscles  of  each  eyeball.  The  larger  the  angle,  the 
more  unequal  is  the  degree  of  contraction  of  the  antago- 
nistic muscles  on  the  two  sides  of  the  eyeball.  This  is  in  no 
way  related  to  the  present  discussion  of  the  fact  that  the 


ADJUSTING   THE  SENSE  OEGANS  189 

adjustment  of  the  sense  organs  is  an  important  class  of 
reflexes.  The  relation  between  this  angle  and  the  muscular 
tension  is  mentioned  here  because  we  shall  in  a  later  chapter 
have  to  refer  to  this  angle ;  and  it  will  then  not  be  neces- 
sary to  explain  again  to  what  reflexes  the  angle  of  converg- 
ence owes  its  existence. 

The  second  adjustment  mentioned  is  that  of  the  size  of 
the  pupil.  In  front  of  the  lens  is  located  a  diaphragm,  the 
visible  part  cf  which  we  call  the  iris,  and  in  accordance  with 
the  color  of  which  we  call  an  eye  blue,  gray,  brown,  etc. 
The  hole  of  the  diaphragm,  which  appears  dark  because  of 
the  dark  cavity  behind  it,  is  the  pupil.  The  pupil  is  the 
larger,  the  weaker  the  general  illumination  of  the  objects 
of  which  the  environment  consists.  When  the  retina  is 
more  strongly  stimulated,  the  response  is  a  contraction  of 
the  pupil. 

This  means,  then,  that  the  stronger  the  outside  light  is, 
the  smaller  the  fraction  of  it  admitted  to  each  point  of  the 
retina  of  the  eye.  In  consequence,  the  stimulation  of  the 
retina  does  not  increase  in  proportion  as  the  light  increases, 
but  much  less.  The  range  of  the  light  intensities  under  the 
influence  of  which  the  Other-One's  retina  can  properly 
function  is  thus  extended,  for  the  maximum  excitation 
beyond  which  the  retina  could  not  properly  function,  is  not 
reached  so  soon. 

The  third  adjustment  of  the  eye  consists  in  the  accommo- 
dation of  the  lens.  Certain  muscle  fibers  located  within 
the  eye  ball  change  the  curvature  of  the  lens  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  the  lens  is  the  flatter  the  greater  the  distance  of 
the  object  stimulating  the  eye.  The  optical  effect  is  this: 
in  spite  of  the  varying  distances  at  which  the  object  may 
be,  all  the  light  emanating  from  any  point  of  the  object  is 
again  invariably  collected  in  a  point  on  the  retina  and  not 
diffused  over  an  area.     Since  we  call  such  a  point — on  the 


190  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

object  as  well  as  on  the  retina — a  focus  (hearth,  fire  place), 
the  adjustment  of  accommodating  the  eye  to  the  distance  is 
sometimes  also  called  focusing.  Accommodation,  however, 
is  the  preferable  term,  because  it  has  always  been  the  cus- 
tomary one  among  physiologists  and  psychologists. 

The  reflex  in  question  may  then  be  described  as  follows. 
Only  when  the  retinal  elements  are  stimulated  in  such  a 
manner  that  those  stimulated, with  the  same  qualitative  ef- 
fect of  excitation  form  groups  on  the  retina  with  sharply 
defined  outlines,  is  the  tension  of  the  accommodating  mus- 
cles left  unchanged,  whatever  it  happens  to  be.  While  this 
description  of  the  reflex  has  a  somewhat  negative  form,  it 
is  more  accurate  than  any  equally  brief  positive  description 
could  be. 

If  these  areas  of  retinal  elements  of  like  excitation  do 
not  possess  sharply  defined  outlines,  but  encroach  upon  each 
other,  overlap,  the  muscles  of  the  accommodating  apparatus 
begin  to  undergo  a  change  of  tension,  accidentally  either  in 
such  a  way  that  they  flatten  the  lens  or  in  such  a  way  that 
they  cause  the  surface  of  the  lens  to  bulge,  until  it  happens 
that  the  group  outlines  referred  to  become  so  sharp  that 
the  accommodating  muscles  cease  to  be  affected,  that  they 
remain  henceforth  in  the  unchanged  state  of  tension  men- 
tioned in  the  preceding  paragraph.  This  places  upon  the 
architect  of  the  nervous  system  a  difficult  problem  of  archi- 
tecture and  engineering.  How  Nature  has  solved  it,  we  do 
not  yet  know. 

In  the  auditory  sense  organ  we  find  again  three  kinds  of 
reflex  adjustment.  One  is  that  thru  action  of  the  muscle 
which  is  called  the  tensor  tympani.  It  is  of  physiological 
rather  than  of  psychological  interest  and  therefore  here  but 
briefly  mentioned. 

Another  adjustment  is  the  change  in  the  direction  of  the 
external  leaf,  which  is  popularly  called  the  ear  altho  it  is 
a  rather  insignificant  part  of  the  auditory  equipment.     We 


ADJUSTING    THE  SENSE  ORGANS  191 

know  how  such  animals  as  horses  and  donkeys  move  their 
ears,  with  the  result  of  catching  more  of  the  sound  waves 
passing  thru  the  air,  in  accordance  with  the  direction  of 
the  sound.  Human  beings  make  so  little  use  of  this  reflex 
that  those  who  in  adult  life  exhibit  even  a  trace  of  it,  are 
regarded  almost  as  curiosities. 

The  most  important  one  in  the  Other-One's  life  of  these 
three  adjusting  reflexes  of  the  auditory  organ  is  that  of 
turning  the  head  until  its  median  plane,  the  plane  which 
divides  the  head  into  two  symmetrical  halves,  coincides  with 
the  direction  of  the  sound  waves.  The  exact  working  of 
this  reflex  can  be  described  more  easily  than  it  may  at  first 
seem.  Physical  investigations  (especially  those  of  G.  W. 
Stewart)  have  shown  that  the  total  sound  effect,  that  is, 
the  sum  of  the  two  sound  effects  in  the  two  ears  physically 
measured,  assumes  its  greatest  value  when  the  source  of 
sound  is  located  in  the  median  plane  of  the  head ;  and  that 
the  total  sound  effect  decreases  rapidly  with  the  increase  of 
the  angle  between  the  median  plane  and  the  direction  (pos- 
itive or  negative)  of  the  sound.  The  reflex,  therefore, 
works  as  follows. 

As  soon  as  the  auditory  organ  is  stimulated,  the  muscles 
of  the  head  begin  to  turn  the  head  in  either  direction.  In 
what  direction  they  pull  at  first,  we  may  regard  as  an  acci- 
dent. If  the  total  sound  effect  decreases,  at  once  the  muscles 
antagonistic  to  those  that  were  pulling,  begin  to  pull  the  head 
around  in  the  opposite  direction  and  continue  to  do  so  until 
there  is  again  a  decrease  in  the  total  excitation  of  both 
auditory  organs  together.  Naturally  this  happens  directly 
after  the  median  plane  has  swung  thru  the  line  of  the  propa- 
gation of  the  sound.  Now  the  first  set  of  muscles  again 
reverses  the  motion.  But  the  ultimate  effect  must  then 
quickly  be  that  of  fixing  the  median  plane  so  that  the  di- 
rection of  the  sound  coincides  with  it. 


192  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEE-ONE 

Thus  far  the  consequence  might  be  that  the  Other-One 
either  faces  the  source  of  sound  or  has  it  in  his  back.  But 
since  the  two  ear  leaves  interfere  with  the  sound  in  such  a 
manner  that  its  effect  on  the  organ  is  greatly  diminished 
when  it  comes  from  the  back,  there  is  only  one  absolute 
maximum  for  the  sum  of  the  two  excitations  in  both  ears 
together,  and  that  maximum  occurs  when  the  Other-One 
faces  the  sound. 

You  can  easily  convince  yourself  of  how  much  difference 
it  makes  whether  the  Other-One  has  such  leaves  attached 
to  his  head  or  not,  even  tho  he  cannot  direct  their  openings 
toward  the  sound  as  many  animals  can.  Of  course,  we  can- 
not cut  them  off  for  this  purpose,  but  we  can  easily  prove 
it  without  any  such  operation.  Just  let  the  Other-One  hold 
his  hollow  hands  before  his  ears,  thus  counteracting  the 
effect  of  the  two  natural  leaves  by  two  much  larger  artificial 
ones.  Let  him  try  it  while  he  is  listening  to  you  speaking 
behind  him.  Ordinarily  your  words  would  then  be  difficult 
to  catch.  At  once  he  tells  you  that  he  can  hear  you  much 
more  distinctly,  quite  normally.  Let  him  try  it  while  you 
are  speaking  before  him,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  he  can 
hardly  understand  you  any  longer. 

The  advantage  of  this  reflex  of  turning  the  head  is  both 
a  direct  and  an  indirect  one.  The  direct  one  is  that  of  the 
best  possible  exposure  of  the  total  auditory  sense  equipment. 
That  is,  it  is  a  reflex  response  to  sound  resulting  in  an  ad- 
justment of  the  sense  organ  of  sound.  But  incidentally  it 
is  at  the  same  time  an  adjustment  of  other  sense  organs. 
For  example,  the  eyes  are  now  better  exposed  to  the  object 
sounding  in  case  this  object  should  act  also  as  a  visual  stim- 
ulus. The  same  indirect  advantage  of  better  exposure  may 
result  to  the  olfactory  sense,  the  cutaneous  sense  of  the 
hands,  and  other  senses. 


LOCALIZIKG  HABITS  193 

The  physicists,  as  just  stated,  discovered  that  the  total 
excitation  of  both  our  auditory  organs  combined  is  great- 
est, for  physical  causes,  when  the  source  of  sound  is  in  the 
median  plane  and  in  front  of  the  head.  With  much  less 
physical  insight  everyone  knows  that  for  a  person  who  has 
only  one  ear  in  functioning  condition,  the  excitation  reaches 
a  maximum  when  the  source  of  sound  is  on  the  side  of  the 
head,  and  fronting  the  auditory  organ  which  is  intact.  The 
one-eared  person  therefore  reflexly  adjusts  his  sense  organ 
by  turning  the  head  until  the  excitation  is  strongest  when 
the  source  of  sound  is  located  opposite  his  healthy  ear  or, 
because  of  the  influence  of  the  ear  leaf,  a  little  forward  of 
that  position.  If  he  then  acquires  the  habit  of  turning  his 
head  about  ninety  degrees  in  a  particular  direction 
he  obtains  by  habit  the  advantage  of  exposing  the  other 
sense  organs  (visual,  cutaneous,  etc.)  which  the  normal  per- 
son obtains  thru  the  possession  of  the  reflex  adjustment 
of  the  organ  of  hearing. 

When  the  one-eared  person  has  thus  learned  to  stretch 
out  his  arm  with  the  result  of  bringing  his  fingers  in  con- 
tact with  the  sounding  object,  the  movement  deserves  to 
be  called  a  "localizing  habit"  comparable  to  the  auditory 
"localizing  reflex"  which  we  have  mentioned  among  the 
localizing  reflexes  in  general.  This  leads  us  to  a  further 
brief  consideration,  previously  promised,  of  the  manner 
in  which  reflexes  which  are  not  originally  localizing  reflexes 
may  become  localizing  habits,  that  is,  may  be  used  as  if  they 
were  localizing  reflexes.  The  reflex  actions  which  serve 
directly  the  purpose  of  an  adjustment  of  the  sense  organs, 
serve  with  special  ease  this  additional  purpose. 

A  typical  example  is  that  of  turning  the  head  until  a 
sound  stimulus  is  located  in  the  median  plane  of  the  head. 
In  this  location,  we  remember,  the  total  efifect  is  greatest, 
provided  also  that  the  head  faces  the  stimulus.     If  now 


194  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

the  organism  has  been  furnished  by  Nature  also  with  re- 
flexes which  adjust  the  position  of  the  whole  body  to  the 
position  of  one  of  its  parts,  in  this  case  the  head,  the  body, 
moving  forward,  will  move  toward  the  source  of  the  sound. 

This  indirect  localization  of  sound  by  means  of  the  reflex 
which  serves  directly  the  adjustment  of  the  sense  organ 
happens  to  become  of  greater  importance  in  actual  life  than 
the  direct  localizing  reflex.  The  reason  for  it  is  not  difficult 
to  see.  This  indirect  localization  is  far  more  exact,  being 
applicable  to  any  angle  and  not  confined  merely  to  localizing 
on  the  right  or  the  left  side  of  the  body :  It  is  two-dimen- 
sional, that  is,  not  merely  one-dimensional  and  distinguish- 
ing only  the  directions  in  the  single  dimension  right-left. 
Nevertheless,  the  direct  localizing  reflex  is  not  superfluous, 
for  it  alone  is  available  when  the  sound  to  be  localized  is 
of  such  short  duration  that  no  adjusting  head  movement  can 
be  completed  while  the  sound  lasts.  Therefore  the  ex- 
periment of  localizing  a  telephone  click  (intentionally  not 
a  prolonged  tone)  is  a  test  of  the  true  localizing  reflex. 

In  the  olfactory  sense  we  find  two  reflex  adjustments. 
One  is  similar  to  the  auditory  adjustment  last  discussed. 
That  is,  the  frontal  part  of  the  median  plane  of  the  head 
is  made  to  coincide  with  the  location  of  the  volatile  sub- 
stance from  which  the  stimulus  emanates.  The  other  ad- 
justment consists  in  breath  control.  When  the  air  is  drawn 
in  forcefully  thru  the  nostrils  (in  extreme  cases  we  call 
this  sniffing),  the  sensory  surfaces  in  the  nasal  cavities  are 
exposed  to  more  of  the  stimulating  molecules  than  they 
would  otherwise  come  in  contact  with  during  a  unit  of 
time.  If  breathing  is  stopped  altogether  for  a  short  time, 
very  few  molecules  of  the  stimulating  substance  will  be  able 
to  penetrate  during  this  time  far  enough  into  the  nasal 
cavities  to  reach  the  sensory  surfaces. 

Just  as  the  auditory  adjusting  reflex  last  mentioned  may 
be  used,  by  habit,  for  sound  localization,  so  the  olfactory  ad- 


LOCALIZING  HABITS  195 

justing  reflex  may  be  and  is  developed  into  a  smell  localizing 
habit.  For  example,  we  see  the  Other-One,  blindfolded, 
turn  his  head  and  body  until  the  excitation  in  his  nasal 
cavities  is  strongest,  and  then  reach  for  the  bunch  of  flowers 
which  we  hold  ready  for  him. 

Six  classes  of  fundamental  forms  of  animal  behavior 
have  now  been  distinguished.  (1)  Locomotion  in  a  straight 
line  in  response  to  lack  of  food.  (2)  Turning  the  body  axis 
side  wise  in  response  to  an  obstacle.  (3)  Positive  localiza- 
tion in  its  two  forms,  on  the  body  surface  and  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  distant  stimulus.  (4)  Negative  localization.  (5) 
Grasping.  (6)  Adjustment  of  the  sense  organs. — A  seventh 
class  is  to  be  added  to  this  list.  Animals  respond  to  certain 
stimuli,  sometimes  internal,  sometimes  external  stimuli,  by 
the  contraction  of  certain  muscles  whose  function  is  of  no 
direct  consequence  to  the  animal  itself,  but  affects  other 
animals  by  stimulating  them  to  act, — often  animals  of  the 
same  species,  but  perhaps  no  less  frequently  animals  of  a 
different  species.  Since  this  is  what  we  call  in  the  social 
life  of  human  beings  "signaling,"  let  us  call  this  class  the 
signaling  reflexes. 

A  few,  but  very  diversified  examples  of  the  signaling 
reflexes  are  the  lighting  up  of  a  fire  fly,  the  squeezing  out 
of  a  black  liquid  from  the  ink  bladder  of  a  cuttle-fish,  the 
communication  of  a  shock  by  an  electric  eel,  the  crowing 
of  a  rooster,  the  barking  of  a  dog,  the  spreading  of  its  tail 
feathers  by  a  pea-cock.  These  reflex  activities,  we  said,  are 
to  affect  other  animals  by  stimulating  them.  How,  by  what 
reflexes,  these  other  animals  respond  to  this  kind  of  stimu- 
lation, does  not  directly  concern  us  here.  So  much  is  clear, 
that  if  no  other  animals  are  present,  or  these  other  animals 
fail  to  respond  by  their  own  reflexes,  the  former  reflex 
actions  are  completely  wasted.  Neither  of  these  cases  is 
rare.    We  have  to  say  more  of  this  waste  later. 


196  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEE-ONE 

It  is  clear,  however,  and  therefore  may  be  stated  at  once, 
that  these  responses  of  the  other  animals  are  chiefly  their 
localizing  reflexes,  positive  and  negative.  The  signaling, 
that  is,  is  of  the  nature  of  attraction  or  repulsion.  It  is  of 
great  importance  in  the  sexual  life  of  animals ;  but  also  in 
innumerable  other  forms  of  co-operative  activity.  And  it  is 
of  hardly  less  importance  in  the  social,  but  not  co-operative, 
— or  call  it  anti-social,  if  you  prefer — activity  which  goes 
under  the  name  of  fighting. 

The  stimuli  calling  out  the  signaling  reflex  actions  in  the 
first  animal  vary  so  much  from  species  to  species  that  very 
little  can  be  said  concerning  them  which  would  be  true  in 
general.  However,  they  are,  as  already  stated,  either  in- 
ternal or  external.  The  most  common  kind  of  external 
stimuli  of  the  signaling  reflexes  are  visual,  for  example, 
the  light  of  the  early  morning  which  makes  the  rooster 
crow ;  but  especially  the  visual  appearance  of  the  whole 
other  animal  in  various  attitudes.  Smell  and  sound  stimuli 
originating  in  the  other  animal  are  probably  not  of  much 
less  importance.  The  internal  stimuli  are,  under  special 
conditions,  organic  and  secretory  stimuli  resulting  from 
the  physiological  processes  going  on  in  the  body  itself.  They 
play  their  role  and  become  effective  even  when  there  is  no 
other  animal  in  the  neighborhood  upon  which  the  signal 
resulting  from  the  reflex  could  have  any  effect.  But,  of 
course,  there  always  might  be  one  not  too  far  away. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  motor  aspect  of  these  reflexes.  It 
is  plain  that  the  most  indispensable  kind  of  signaling  is  that 
thru  a  distance.  However,  signaling  may  occur  by  con- 
tact, acting  on  the  cutaneous  sense.  Handshaking  is  a  con- 
ventional form  of  signaling  by  contact.  It  is  a  modification 
of  such  reflex  crowding  together  as  may  be  seen  with  rab- 
bits, or  with  chickens  sitting  on  a  roost,  where  none  wants 
to  be  at  the  end  of  the  line  or  to  be  alone,  but  every  new- 


SIGNALING  REFLEXES  197 

comer  tends  to  crowd  in  between  two  already  close  together. 
By  handshaking  the  Other-One  signals  to  us  that  he  is  to 
stand  together  with  us,  literally  and  figuratively. 

But  there  is  a  greater  need  for  signaling  thru  a  distance. 
When  the  other  animal  or  person  is  in  my  neighborhood, 
he  is  exposed  to  the  same  stimuli  to  which  I  am  exposed, 
and  in  reacting  to  them  we  may  co-operate.  But  when  he 
is  at  a  distance,  I  have  to  call  him,  to  signal  to  him,  in 
order  that  we  may  co-operate. 

The  greater  the  distance  thru  which  it  is  able  to  work, 
the  less  limited  the  applicability  of  the  signal.  One  might 
think,  then,  that  the  most  effective  kind  of  signaling  would 
be  by  reflex  activity  producing  stimuli  which  affect  the 
other  animal's  visual  sense.  But  that  is  not  necessarily  so. 
Optical  stimuli  reach  very  far,  but  they  have  to  go  virtually 
in  a  straight  line.  Acoustical  stimuli,  on  the  other  hand, 
go  less  far,  but  quite  readily  around  the  corners  of  inter- 
vening things.  While  light  may  reach  my  eyes  thru  bilHons 
of  miles  from  a  distant  star,  a  friend  standing  only  a  hun- 
dred yards  away  in  a  dense  forest  may  be  invisible  to  me. 
He  can  not  signal  to  me  optically.  But  I  can  hear  his  voice, 
whose  effect  is  not  shaded  from  me  by  the  intervening 
trees. 

We  find,  therefore,  that  in  the  higher  animals  the  sig- 
naling mechanism  for  the  production  of  acoustical  stimuli 
is  as  highly  developed  as  that  for  the  production  of  optical 
stimuli. 

Let  us  mention  a  few  examples  of  reflex  signaling  among 
human  beings,  in  which  optical  stimuli  are  used,  that  is, 
stimuli  acting  on  the  visual  sense  of  the  Other-One.  Such 
signals  are  the  shaking  of  a  fist,  the  showing  of  the  teeth, 
the  blushing  of  the  face,  when  one  gets  ready  to  fight  his 
enemy.    If  the  Other-One  responds  to  these  signals  by  run- 


198  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE  "" 

ning  away,  so  that  one  does  not  have  to  fight  him  at  all, 
the  signals  have  served  their  purpose  well. 

That  animals  as  well  as  infants  possess  by  inheritance 
reflexes  of  reacting  to  such  signals,  there  is  not  doubt.  They 
react  to  signals  of  form  as  well  as  of  color,  by  reflex  and 
also,  of  course,  later  by  habit. 

The  present  writer  has  repeatedly  observed  that  children 
a  few  months  old,  with  no  experience  whatsoever  as  to 
danger  from  animals  reacted  definitely  and  strongly  with 
shrinking,  tension  of  the  facial  muscles,  and  crying  when 
shown  the  face  of  a  stufTed  puppet  representing  a  little 
pig  of  simple  features  like  those  of  our  figure.  Since  the 
reaction  was  the  same  in  the  case  of  different  children  and 
of  somewhat  different  puppets,  the  conclusion  is  to  be 
drawn  that  it  was  a  reaction  to  the  common  features  of 
these  puppets,  consisting  in  a  circular  head,  two  conspic- 
uous circles  within,  the  eyes,  and  a  conspicuous  triangle, 
the  snout,  as  shown  in  the  figure.  Obviously,  then,  the  sen- 
sory points  of  the  child's  eyes  are  by  inheritance  combined 
into  a  large  number,  perhaps  thousands,  of  groups  so  that 
all    the    points    stimulated    by    an    appearance,  in  upright 


THE    STIMULATING    SIGNAL  THE    REACTION 

A    FORM    SIGNAL    CALLING    FORTH    NEGATIVE    LOCALIZATION. 

position,  more  or  less  like  that  of  our  figure,  send  their 
excitations  to  a  single  motor  point  or  a  single  central 
point  whence  the  flux  is  redistributed  to  cause  the  definite 
reactions  mentioned.     There  are  probably  also  many  other 


SIGNALING  REFLEXES  199 

kinds  of  such  groups,  of  other  shapes,  inherited  by  each 
individual  of  the  human  and  animal  race.  In  animals, 
too,  similar  definite  reactions  to  the  appearance  of  an 
object  never  experienced  before  have  been  reported  by 
various  observers. 

That  animals  possess  reflex  responses  to  signals  of  light 
or  color  (independent  of  form)  is  also  beyond  doubt. 

On  the  other  hand,  someone  may  find  it  difficult  to  under- 
stand that  the  color  change  of  the  first  animal  itself  can  be 
a  reflex,  that  is,  the  result  of  a  nervous  current.  For  ex- 
ample, how  can  the  signal  of  blushing  of  the  face  result 
from  a  nervous  current?  Do  not  think  that  this  is  less 
easily  understood  to  be  a  reflex  than  are  the  other  signals. 
Blushing  means  simply  an  increase  of  the  blood  quantity 
in  the  skin.  And  this  is  due  to  a  relaxation  of  the  ring- 
shaped  muscle  fibers  in  the  walls  of  the  blood  vessels,  which 
are  now  by  expanding  capable  of  yielding  to  the  blood  pres- 
sure and  of  carrying  a  larger  quantity  of  blood. 

For  acoustical  signaling  most  of  the  higher  species  of  an- 
imals are  equipped  with  a  special  sound  producing  appara- 
tus. This  is  of  great  complexity  in  man.  It  may  be  re- 
garded as  consisting  of  two  chief  subdivisions,  the  blowing 
mechanism  and  the  resonating  mechanism.  The  former 
consists  of  the  muscles  varying  the  volume  of  the  chest 
cavity,  that  is,  (1)  the  diaphragm,  stretched  out  below  the 
chest,  and  (2)  the  muscles  acting  on  the  ribs.  The  reso- 
nating mechanism  depends  on  the  following  six  groups  of 
muscles,  each  of  these  groups  being  capable  of  acting  locally 
or  in  concert  with  the  other  five:  (1)  the  muscles  of  the 
upper  lip,  (2)  those  of  the  lower  lip,  (3)  those  moving  the 
lower  jaw  relatively  to  the  upper  jaw,  (4)  those  of  the 
soft  palate,  whose  chief  function  consists  in  closing  or 
opening  to  the  air  the  nasal  passage,  (5)  those  of  the  tongue, 
and  (6)  those  of  the  larynx,  whose  chief  function  consists 


•200 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


in  bringing  the  tvvo  cushions,  rather  inadequately  named  the 
vocal  "cords,"  of  the  larynx  closer  together  or  keeping  them 
farther  apart.  These  eight  groups  of  muscles,  together 
with  the  parts  of  the  body  on  which  they  act,  make  up  what 
we  call  our  vocal  organs  or  speech  organs. 

Leaving  here  the  signaling  reflexes  we  turn  to  an  eighth 
fundamental  form  of  animal  behavior.  Animals — with  the 
exception,  perhaps,  of  lower  animals — sleep  at  certain  times, 
especially  during  the  night. 

Sleep  may  interest  the  investigator  from  many  points  of 
view.  One  may  ask,  for  example,  what  benefit  the  animal 
derives  from  sleeping.  One  may  try  to  give  a  complete  de- 
scription of  everything  characteristic  of  the  condition  of 
sleep.  One  may  ask  whether  this  condition  depends  for 
its  initiation  and  continuance  on  refl-exes;  and,  if  on  other 
conditions,  on  what  others.  The  most  universally  appli- 
cable, but  not  the  vnly  true,  answer  to  the  first  question  is, 
that  the  animal  recuperates  during  sleep  from  fatigue,  es- 
pecially from  fatigue  of  the  nervous  system. 

As  to  the  second  question,  a  complete  description  of  all 
the  characteristics  of  sleep  is  out  of  the  question  in  this 
book.  But  the  chief  characteristics  of  this  condition  of  life 
must  be  mentioned.  They  are  two.  (1)  A  sleeping  animal 
assumes  a  peculiar  posture.  (2)  A  sleeping  animal  does  not 
respond  to  stimuli  as  readily  in  the  customary  manner  as  a 
waking  animal.  The  first  of  these  two  is  to  some  extent  the 
cause  of  the  second. 

The  peculiar  posture  of  the  O^her-One — if  we  restrict 
ourselves  to  considering  him — does  not  consist  merely  in  the 
fact  that  he  is  lying  and  not  standing.  It  consists  also  in 
the  fact  that  his  sense  organs  are  more  or  less  covered  up. 
This  is  especially  ^rue  for  the  eyes,  but  for  other  sense 
organs  too.  The  ears  are  sometimes  more  or  less  covered, 
for  example,  by  the  neighborhood  of  his  pillow  or  his  own 


SLEEPING  REFLEXES  201 

arm.  The  nostrils  are  not  always  exposed  to  drafts  of  air 
as  freely  as  ordinarily.  The  skin  is  exposed  to  stimulation 
less  than  ordinarily.  The  very  absence  of  strong  skeletal 
motions  prevents  stimulation  which  might  come  from  the 
body  itself. 

But  even  when  stimuli  have  access  to  the  sense  organs 
quite  as  under  ordinary  conditions,  the  Other-One  does  not 
respond  to  them  readily  in  his  customary  ways.  Speak  to 
the  Other-One  while  he  is  asleep,  and  he  does  not  open  his 
mouth  for  a  reply.  Of  course,  in  saying  this  we  take  it 
for  granted  that  you  do  not  speak  to  him  in  an  overloud 
voice.  The  explanation  of  the  fact  that  we  find  him  so 
unresponsive  is  obviously  a  condition  of  preoccupation,  of 
absent-mindedness,  in  which  he  happens  to  be.  We  have  dis- 
cussed preoccupation  in  a  former  chapter  and  found  that  it 
results  from  having  for  a  considerable  time  responded 
strongly  to  a  certain  class  of  stimuli  by  a  certain  class  of 
reactions.  But  to  what  stimuli  by  what  reactions  in  the 
present  case?  And  what  reactions  therefore  take  the  place 
of  opening  his  mouth  and  speaking?  The  answer  will 
presently  be  given. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  third  question,  which  we  can  now 
easily  answer.  Are  there  any  reflexes  on  which  the  initia- 
tion and  continuance  of  sleeping  depend?  How  are  these 
reflexes  described  in  their  sensory  and  motor  aspects? 

They  are.  clearly,  reflexes  which  have  their  adequate 
stimuli  partly  in  daily  recurring  external  conditions,  such 
as  darkness,  (and  also  in  seasonal  conditions  such  as  tem- 
perature, in  the  winter  sleep  of  animals,)  partly  in  internal 
conditions  such  as  the  physiological  term  "fatigue"  refers 
to.  The  animal  then  retires,  lies  down,  covers  up,  closes 
its  eyes,  etc.  All  these  are  muscular  activities  of  a  per- 
fectly definite  description.  These  muscular  activities  (keep- 
ing a  certain  posture  is  also  a  muscular  activity),  these  re- 


202  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

flex  responses  to  the  stimuli  mentioned,  then  continue  a 
considerable  length  of  time. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  Other-One  becomes  "preoc- 
cupied." We  ask  him  his  name.  He  only  closes  his  eyes 
tighter,  covers  himself  up  better.  We  let  the  alarm  ring. 
He  only  presses  his  ears  tighter  into  the  pillows.  Indeed, 
the  Other-One  being  a  possessor  of  habits,  it  could  not  al- 
together surprise  us  if  his  preoccupation  should  even  lead 
to  taking  the  alarm  clock  and  throwing  it  out  of  the  win- 
dow. "It's  nice  to  get  up  in  the  morning;  but  it's  nicer 
to  lie  in  bed." 

Recapitulating,  then,  we  can  say  that  the  phase  of  life 
called  sleeping  depends  on  the  reflexes  of  sleeping.  These 
reflexes  bring  about  a  posture  generally  unfavorable  to 
stimulation.  Their  continued  function — as  any  other  con- 
tinued nervous  function — leads  to  preoccupation,  so  that 
the  stimuli  still  capable  of  acting  on  the  sense  organs  are 
as  likely  as,  or  even  more  likely  than,  to  call  forth  their 
adequate  responses,  to  bring  about  merely  the  continued 
reflex  response  of  the  sleeping  posture. 

Finally  the  stimuli  characteristic  of  the  sleeping  reflexes 
cease.  Darkness  ceases.  Fatigue  in  the  body  disappears. 
These  reflexes  function  then  more  and  more  weakly,  and 
gradually  the  preoccupation  disappears.  Other  stimuli  in- 
crease. It  gets  lighter.  The  noise  of  the  day  makes  its  ap- 
pearance. People  present  themselves  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Other-One  and,  intentionally  or  unintentionally, 
stimulate  him  more  strongly  and  yet  more  strongly.  Finally 
the  Other-One  reacts  to  one  of  these  stimuli  strongly  and 
adequately : — he  begins  to  wake  up.  He  reacts  to  further 
stimuli  of  this  ordinary  class  in  the  same  manner,  ade- 
quately:— he  is  fully  awake.  His  adequate  reaction  is 
what  we  call  his  wakefulness. 

Having  now  discussed  eight  fundamental  forms  of  ani- 
mal behavior — eight  classes  of  reflexes  or  instinctive  ac- 


KIGHT-SIDEDNESS  203 

tivities — it  occurs  to  us  to  ask  whether  right-handedness  is 
a  ninth  or  should  somehow  find  a  place  among  them.  First, 
however,  we  must  substitute  the  term  "right-sidedness"  for 
right-handedness,  for  the  greater  frequency  of  using  the 
right  side  is  not  restricted  to  the  Other-One's  arm,  but 
is  equally  obvious  in  the  leg  and  in  the  head.  But  our 
definition  of  a  reflex  does  not  apply  to  right-side-dness.  It 
is  true,  there  is,  in  a  sense,  a  particular  "motor  point"  to 
which  reference  is  made.  But  there  is  no  such  "sensory 
point  "  as  the  definition  of  a  reflex  requires. 

We  must  say,  therefore,  that  right-sidedness  is  not  in 
itself  a  reflex,  but  that  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  other  reflexes, — 
of  those  in  which  the  motor  point  may,  purely  from  the 
mechanical  point  of  view,  be  located  on  either  side  of  the 
Other-One's  body.  Among  those  reflexes  in  which  right- 
sidedness  may  make  its  appearance,  the  most  conspicuous 
class  are  the  positive  localizing  reflexes,  making  up  the  * 
third  among  our  eight  classes. 

It  is  so  well  known  that  it  need  hardly  be  mentioned 
here  that  the  left-sidedness  of  the  minority  of  members  of 
the  human  race  corresponds  in  every  respect  to  the  right- 
sidedness  of  the  majority,  so  far  as  the  psychologist  is  in- 
terested in  the  matter.  Outside  of  the  human  race  right- 
sidedness  seems  to  exist  only,  in  some  degree,  in  the  an- 
thropoid apes,  and  a  little  of  it  perhaps  in  the  elephant. 

A  remarkable  fact  is  that  right-sided  people  show  left- 
sidedness  when  they  are  small  babies.  Toward  the  middle 
of  the  first  year  (but  by  no  means  at  this,  the  same  definite, 
time  in  all  individuals)  or  sooner  or  later  the  preference  dis- 
appears, and  both  hands  are  now  used  with  about  equal 
frequency.  During  the  second  year  (there  being  again 
great  individual  variations)  the  right  hand  begins  to  predom- 
inate. When  habits  of  using  a  hand,  as  in  eating  at  the  table 
or  in  using  a  pencil,  establish  themselves,  social  influences 


2(->4  rt'YCHOLOGY   OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

greatly  strengthen  the  right-sidedness,  for  the  teacher  gen- 
erally insists  that  the  pupil  use  the  right  hand.  But  when 
the  child  learns  to  skate,  and  nobody  tells  him  whether  to 
slide  a  certain  curve  on  one  foot  or  on  the  other,  he  easily 
discovers  himself,  not  only  that  he  is  right-sided  rather 
than  left-sided,  but  also  that  he  is  right-sided  rather  than 
merely  right-handed.  We  shall  have  to  say  a  little  more 
about  this  in  a  later  chapter,  in  discussing  rhythm. 

The  change  from  left-sidedness  to  right-sidedness  during 
babyhood  seems  to  find  its  explanation  in  the  following 
facts  and  conclusions.  As  to  the  time  of  the  development 
of  the  right  hemisphere  of  the  brain  in  comparison  with 
the  left,  we  are  entitled  to  a  conclusion  from  analogy.  The 
human  brain  with  its  complex  functions  is  not  fully  de- 
veloped until  years  after  birth.  The  brain  of  larger  animals 
of  a  longevity  comparable  to  that  of  man,  with  its  simpler, 
but  no  less  important  functions,  is  fully  developed  some 
months  after  birth.  May  not  a  similar  rule  govern  the 
development  of  the  left  and  the  right  hemispheres?  The 
temporal  part  of  the  left  hemisphere,  with  its  highly  com- 
plex speech  functions,  is  not  fully  developed  until  years 
after  birth — so  much  we  know.  By  analogy  we  conclude 
that  the  symmetrically  corresponding  part  of  the  right 
hemisphere,  with  its  simpler,  though  no  less  important 
functions,  develops  to  maturity  at  a  much  earlier  period. 

If  this  is  so,  activity  of  that  hand  which  is  governed  by 
the  right  hemisphere,  must  become  conspicuous  at  a  much 
earlier  period  than  activity  of  the  other  hand.  Indeed, 
the  left  hand,  whose  muscles  are  closely  connected  with  the 
temporal  part  of  the  right  hemisphere,  is  the  preferred  mem- 
ber in  the  activities  of  the  first  few  months  after  birth.  Thus 
the  fact  that  a  normal  human  child  is  at  first  left-handed 
appears  plain  enough. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  question  why  the  human  adult  is 
one-sided  and  right-sided  is  an  entirely  different  one.    The 


RIGHT-SIDEDNESS  205 

answer  to  the  first  half  of  this  question,  why  he  is  one- 
sided, we  can  leave  entirely  to  the  physiologists.  The 
answer  to  the  second  half  of  the  question,  why  he  is  right- 
sided,  may  be  found  in  his  need  of  securing  protection,  fur- 
nished by  Nature  thru  heredity,  for  his  most  vital  organ, 
his  heart.  The  heart,  previously  covered,  becomes  ex- 
posed (in  consequence  of  man's  erect  position)  to  the 
enemy  fighting  with  weapons  (in  consequence  of  his  erect 
position)  rather  than  with  his  jaws.  Right-sidedness  gives 
some  protection  to  the  heart. 

One  might  think,  further,  that  a  mistake  has  been  made 
in  not  mentioning  among  the  Other-One's  reflexes  or  in- 
stinctive activities  the  important  activity  of  walking.  But 
we  have  hardly  any  right  to  regard  that  as  instinctive.  The 
reflexes  of  locomotion  seem  to  be  poorer  in  the  species 
man  than  in  many  animals.  Even  creeping,  in  babies, 
seems  to  be  an  acquired  habit  rather  than  an  instinctive  ac- 
tivity. Walking  is  probably  a  compound  habit,  built  up 
out  of  the  habit  of  balancing  on  one  (either)  leg  plus  the 
positive  localizing  reflexes. 

The  complete  ability  of  locomotion  in  the  upright  po- 
sition involves  two  distinct  abilities  of  muscular  action: 
the  ability  to  rise  from  a  lying  to  a  standing  position  and 
the  ability  to  balance  on  either  leg.  The  ability  to  rise  is 
only  imperfectly  developed  as  long  as  holding  on  an  object, 
a  chair  or  the  like,  is  necessary  in  order  to  rise.  This  im- 
perfect ability  usually  precedes  by  several  months  the 
child's  ability  to  rise  to  his  feet  from  the  floor  without  the 
aid  of  any  supporting  object.  The  ability  to  balance  on 
(either)  one  leg  is  naturally  preceded — as  a  rule — by  the 
ability  to  balance  on  both  legs,  which,  on  the  whole,  is  more 
easily  acquired. 

The  governing  reflex  of  the  whole  group  in  question 
seems  to  be  that  of  straightening  the  legs  in  response  to 


206         _  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

pressure  against  the  soles.  A  child  about  nine  months  old, 
or  even  considerably  younger,  may  absolutely  "refuse"  to 
be  held  on  anybody's  arms  in  a  sitting,  flexible  position.  The 
reflex  of  straightening  the  legs  causes  a  stiffening  of  the 
body.  The  mother  then  naturally  places  the  child,  no 
longer  easily  held  in  her  arms  when  in  this  straight  position, 
with  his  feet  on  her  knees,  or  a  table,  or  the  floor.  The 
child  then  stands,  in  a  way,  but  retains  this  standing  position 
only  because  he  is  kept  from  tumbling  by  his  mother's 
arms.  Soon  the  child  learns  to  use  his  own  hands,  in  the 
control  of  which  he  has  by  this  time  already  acquired  con- 
siderable skill,  in  order  to  keep  from  tumbling.  He  grasps 
whatever  is  in  sight  and  reach  and  thus  learns  to  keep  in  a 
standing  position. 

While  the  child  is  standing  before  an  object,  holding  on 
with  both  hands,  one  of  the  hands  accidentally  loses  its 
grasp,  the  body  weight  is  thrown  on  the  leg  of  the  other 
side,  and  consequently  that  leg  is  straightened.  The  body 
as  a  whole,  perhaps,  is  thus  somewhat  raised,  and  with  it 
that  leg  which  remained  slightly  bent.  But  now  this  leg, 
hanging  and  subject  to  the  effect  of  gravity,  straightens 
somewhat ;  and  when  the  body  regains  its  vertical  position 
and  the  foot  of  this  leg  touches  the  ground,  it  straightens 
perfectly,  owing  to  the  reflex  repeatedly  mentioned.  The 
weight  of  the  body  is  thus  thrown  again — lightly — upon 
the  other  leg.  A  swinging  movement  of  the  body  may  thus 
result,  from  the  left  to  the  right,  from  the  right  to  the  left, 
and  so  forth.     This  is  balancing  sideways. 

It  is  clear  that  this  movement  needs  only  a  slight  modifica- 
tion to  become  a  regular  walking  movement.  Children  who 
are  just  beginning  to  walk,  do  indeed,  usually,  walk  in  this 
pendulum-like  fashion,  comparable  to  the  walking  of  a 
sailor. 

One  finds  here  and  there  in  psychological  literature  the 
assertion  that  the  walking  of  a  child  is  the  result  of  an  in- 


LEARNING  TO   WALK  207 

stinct  consisting  in  a  tendency  of  the  legs  to  swing  fore  and 
back  in  directions  opposite  to  each  other,  and  that  these  in- 
stinctive movements  can  be  observed  in  a  baby  a  few 
months  old  when  held  suspended.  While  such  opposite  fore 
and  back  swinging  movements  of  the  legs  may  sometimes 
be  observed,  it  seems  doubtful  if  they  have  much  significance 
for  the  acquisition  of  the  ability  to  walk,  since  one  does  not 
walk  in  suspension,  but  on  a  supporting  surface.  In  any 
case,  it  is  possible  to  derive  the  alternate  movements  of 
the  legs  in  walking  from  the  reflex  of  straightening  each 
leg  in  response  to  pressure  against  the  sole,  without  assum- 
ing any  specific  "instinct  of  walking." 

We  described  how  a  child  may  learn  to  stand  alone, 
balancing  himself  sideways.  But  in  order  to  stand  really 
alone  he  must  also  keep  from  losing  his  balance  in  the 
forward  and  backward  directions.  From  falling  forward 
he  may  be  kept  by  the  same  reflex  of  straightening  men- 
tioned before.  When  the  body  begins  to  move  forward, 
less  weight  is  placed  on  the  heels  and  more  on  the  soles. 
Accordingly  the  foot  straightens,  the  heel  is  raised  above 
the  ground  and  the  body  is  kept  from  moving  forward 
siiice  the  centre  of  gravity  is  now  behind  the  point  of  sup- 
port. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  body  begins  to  move  back- 
ward, more  and  more  weight  is  placed  on  the  heels,  the 
pressure  on  the  soles  vanishes,  and  the  muscles  which  keep 
the  legs  straight  relax.  The  knees  then  bend  forward  and 
thus  a  part  of  the  weight  of  the  body  is  thrown  in  front  of 
the  previous  center  of  gravity,  thus  restoring  the  balance. 

Just  as  the  swinging  of  the  body  to  the  left  and  right,  so 
these  kinds  of  movement  have  great  significance  for  walk- 
ing. In  the  walking  movements  of  a  grown  person  the 
heel  of  one  foot,  when  the  body  is  already  falling  forward, 
rises  with  the  straightening  of  the  foot  and  raises,  with 


208  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  THE  OTHEK-ONE 

the  whole  body,  the  other  foot  perhaps  quite  sufficiently 
from  the  floor.  This  other  foot,  now  free,  by  the  mere 
force  of  gravity  swings  forward. 

We  have  been  trying  to  explain  how  a  child  learns  to 
balance  his  body  in  the  upright  position,  both  sideways  and 
front-back,  without  having  to  hold  to  an  object.  This  bal- 
ancing is  virtually  already  walking.  Before  this  accom- 
plishment of  standing  free,  the  child  usually  begins  to  walk 
along  by  pieces  of  furniture,  changing  the  hold  of  his  hands 
as  he  walks  on.  What  reflex  is  the  basis  of  this  locomotion? 
It  seems  that,  in  response  to  a  visual  stimulation,  not  only 
the  hand  but  the  foot,  too,  stretches  toward  the  thing  which 
impresses  the  eye.  This  is  simply  the  positive  localizing 
reflex. 

The  localizing  reflex  is  the  essential  factor  changing 
standing  (balancing)  into  true  walking.  Imagine  a  child 
standing  before  a  bench,  holding  on  with  both  hands,  and 
an  object,  say,  a  pencil,  lying  on  the  end  of  the  bench  to 
the  right.  The  effect  of  the  stimulation  of  the  eye  by  the 
pencil  is  a  stretching  of  the  right  arm  and  the  right  leg  to 
the  right.  The  body  then  falls  to  the  right  until  the  right 
foot  again  touches  the  ground.  The  body  is  now  some- 
what displaced  to  the  right.  The  feet  are  farther  apart 
than  normally  and  are  therefore,  in  consequence  of  special 
reflexes  which  we  need  not  discuss,  brought  together  to 
their  normal  position,  but  of  course  without  any  essential 
change  of  the  body  sideways.  Now  the  whole  stretching 
of  the  right  hand  and  the  right  foot  to  the  right  is  repeated 
until  the  hand  grasps  the  object.  Thus  comes  about  walk- 
ing along  pieces  of  furniture  or  the  walls  of  the  room. 

In  the  same  way  free  walking  results  after  the  child  has 
learned  to  balance  himself  without  any  support  by  his 
hands.  While  standing,  in  response  to  a  stimulation  of  his 
eyes  by  an  object  he  moves  one  leg  slightly  toward  the  ob- 


LEARNING  TO   WALK  209 

ject,  shifts  his  weight  so  that  it  rests  on  this  leg  and  draws 
the  other  leg  after,  secures  his  balance,  then  moves  again 
the  first  leg  toward  the  object,  and  so  on.  One  might  call 
this  form  of  locomotion  walking  on  one  leg  only.  In  a 
week  or  two  this  one-sidedness  gives  place  to  the  regular 
form  of  walking  in  which  both  legs  take  part  equally.  For 
many  months  thereafter,  however,  a  child's  walk  remains 
clumsy  because  the  legs  are  kept  so  far  apart,  owing  to  the 
anatomical  fact  that  this  opening  of  the  legs  sideways  is 
the  normal  position  until  birth,  which  but  gradually  changes 
into  that  of  the  older  child  and  adult,  and  also  to  the  fact 
that  balancing  is  easier  in  this  position. 

Usually  a  child  learns  to  balance  himself  standing  still 
without  support  by  his  hands,  before  he  learns  to  move  in 
the  upright  position.  But  there  are  exceptional  cases  where 
children,  being  held  in  the  upright  position,  are  suddenly 
attracted  by  an  object,  perhaps  the  mother's  voice,  and  start 
off  running  successfully  five  or  six  steps  until  they  have 
reached  the  object. 

If  walking  is  thus  the  outgrowth  of  standing,  it  is  well 
to  "encourage"  free  standing  as  much  as  possible  after  the 
baby  has  learned  to  stand  while  holding  to  things.  What 
does  it  mean  to  "encourage"  him?  Let  us  reduce  the  pro- 
cess to  its  essential  elements.  (1)  The  child,  when  beginning 
to  tumble,  reflexly  draws  in  his  legs.  (2)  He  has  often  tum- 
bled, when  standing  and  losing  the  hold  of  his  hands.  (3) 
Subsequently,  by  habit,  he  draws  in  his  legs  at  once  (in 
other  words,  he  sits  down)  when  standing  and  losing  the 
hold  of  his  hands.  But  he  cannot  practice  balancing  his 
body  if  he  sits  down.  Therefore  (4)  we  give  his  hands 
the  same  or  similar  sensory  impressions  as  if  they  were  sup- 
porting the  body. 

For  example,  we  let  the  standing  child  grasp  for  support 
a  small  stick  or  pencil  which   we  are  holding,   and  then, 


210        '  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEE-ONB 

gradually,  we  cease  to  hold  it.  The  child  then  balances 
and,  although  nothing  supports  him,  receives  almost  the 
same  stimuli  in  his  hands  and  eyes  as  if  he  were  still  sup- 
ported by  the  stick  in  his  hands.  The  process  of  balancing 
suffers  no  sudden  interference  by  a  new  stimulation  (caused 
by  the  withdrawal  of  an  object  from  his  hands)  and  its 
reaction  of  sitting  down.  The  "encouragement"  which  we 
give  the  child  is  therefore  a  purely  negative  event  in  the 
education  of  his  nervous  system :  we  keep  an  obstacle  out 
of  the  way. 

Summing  up,  we  may  say  that  walking  is  a  habit,  a  con- 
certed action  acquired,  not  inherited  in  this  concerted  form, 
and  based  on  the  three  classes  of  reflexes  (1)  stretching 
(stimulus:  strong  pressure  on  the  sole),  (2)  bending  (also 
called  grasping,  in  hand  actions, — the  stimulus  being  gentle 
pressure  on  the  sole),  and  (3)  positive  (and  in  the  main 
visual)   localization. 

In  psychological,  and  even  more  in  sociological,  dis- 
cussions certain  "human  instincts"  are  often  spoken  of, 
which  we  do  not  care  to  enumerate  among  the  fundamental 
forms  of  behavior  of  animals  and  of  the  Other-One  for 
which  Xature  has  made  provision  by  heredity.  We  ought 
to  give  our  reason  why  we  do  not  regard  them  as  special 
classes.  Let  us  for  this  purpose  give  first  the  complete 
list  of  the  eight  forms  of  behavior  which  we  have  regarded 
as  most  interesting  from  our  point  of  view. 

1.  Straight  locomotion  in  response  to  lack  of  food. 

2.  Turning   the   body   axis   sidewise   in    response    to   an   obstacle. 

3.  Positive   localization,   on   the   body    surface   or    outward. 

4.  Negative   localization. 

5.  Grasping   (bending,  action  of  the  flexor  muscles). 

6.  Adjustment   of    the    sense   organs. 

7.  Signaling. 

8.  Sleeping. 


SO-CALI^ED   INSTINCTS  211 

For  example,  "hunting"  is  sometimes  mentioned  as  ;i 
human  instinct.  It  seems  that  this  form  of  behavior  is  a 
habit  based  essentially  upon  (1)  and  (2).  "Tramping"  is 
about  the  same.  If  one  wants  to  distinguish  between  hunt- 
ing and  tramping,  one  may  say  that  to  the  former  (3)  and 
(5)  also  contribute  strongly,  for  the  hunter  likes  to  follow 
the  game  (if  he  sees  any)  and  to  bring  some  home. 

Further,  "acquisition"  or  "hoarding"  seems  to  be  a  habit 
based  on  (3)  and  (5).  "Manipulation"  or  "construction" 
seems  to  be  about  the  same  habit.  A  child,  let  us  say,  picks 
uj)  one  of  a  number  of  wooden  blocks  lying  about  in  his 
room.  He  receives  the  visual  stimulation  of  a  similar  block, 
and  since  the  nervous  path  is  still  favored  by  the  reduction 
of  the  resistance  due  to  the  previous  stimulation,  reacts  in 
the  same  way,  walks  towards  it  and  puts  on  it  his  hand  in 
which  he  still  has  the  first  block.  Since  now  he  cannot 
pick  up  the  second  block,  he  opens  and  raises  his  hand  and, 
there,  has  before  him  a  structure,  one  block  upon  another. 
Since  this  double  block  is  a  more  striking  stimulus  than  any 
of  the  single  ones,  it  is  quite  natural  that  he  returns  to  it, 
after  having  picked  up  one  more  of  the  blocks  lying  about. 
Is  not  all  the  so-called  constructive  activity  simply  a  more 
or  less  complicated  habit  of  the  same  kind  as  this  very 
simple  example?  This  habit  of  gathering  and  piling  up 
must  develop  from  the  two  reflexes  of  localizing  and  of 
grasping,  provided  the  child  is  surrounded  by  things 
which  are  sufficiently  similar  so  that  two  or  more  of  them 
together  make  a  similar,  but  more  intensive  sensory  im- 
pression than  a  single  one ;  and  what  child  does  not  live 
under  such  surroundings?  It  is  hardly  necessary,  then, 
to  assume  a  mysterious  particular  instinct  of  constructive- 
ness.  That  the  habit  of  taking  to  pieces,  derived  from  the 
reflex  of  grasping,  becomes  united  with  this  habit  of  putting 


212  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

together  is  plain  enough,  for  taking  apart  brings  about  ever 
new  opportunities  for  putting  together.  It  is  unfortunately 
true  that  taking  to  pieces  is  not  inevitably  followed  by  put- 
ting together.  Nevertheless  "destructiveness"  is  no  more 
a  human  "instinct"  than  "constructiveness." 

"Fear,"  running  away,  is  a  habit  based  on  (4),  negative 
localization.  The  peculiar  attitude  of  a  person  in  bodily 
pain  seems  to  belong  to  the  same  form  of  behavior.  He 
shrinks  away  from  the  objects  of  pain.  He  curls  up  or 
writhes,  bends  and  twists  all  his  limbs. 

"Attention"  is  sometimes  called  an  instinct.  What  is  re- 
ferred to  is  obviously  habits  based  chiefly  on  (6),  to  some 
extent  also  on  (3). 

"Sociality"  is  sometimes  called  an  instinct.  It  refers  to 
those  habits  which  are  based  on  (7).  The  response  to  the 
signal  brings  about  social  relations. 

The  so-called  instinct  of  "idleness"  is  based  on  (8).  A 
person  who  acts  habitually  "sleepy"  when  we  expect  him  to 
expose  his  sense  organs  to  all  or  to  certain  stimuli,  is  an 
idler. 

In  connection  with  "instincts"  it  has  become  the  custom 
among  psychologists  to  speak  of  "emotions."  From  the 
social  point  of  view  emotions  are  most  curious  phenomena. 
But  if  we  analyse  them  psychologically,  we  find  that  they 
are  nothing  but  "wasted"  reflexes  and  habits.  If  a  per- 
son shows  most  or  virtually  all  the  symptoms  of  "sleep," 
that  is,  reacts  with  the  sleeping  reflexes  above  discussed, 
but  during  the  day  and  under  conditions  where  such  reac- 
tion serves  no  purpose,  naive  observers,  poets,  may  be  ex- 
cused for  speaking  of  his  sorrow  and  anguish  and  telling  us 
that  his  very  soul  has  been  stirred  up.  But  to  the  scientific 
observer  this  sorrow  and  anguish  is  merely  a  wasted  sleep- 
ing reflex.  The  situation  calling  forth  the  reflex  action  is 
one  of  disappointment.     And  the  reflex  action  means  re- 


SO-CALLED   EMOTIONS  213 

tiring  to  a  state  of  inore  or  less  prolonged  inactivity. 

We  can  at  once  derive  the  symptoms  and  comprehend  the 
biological  value  of  his  reaction  if  we  recall  that  in  animal 
life  and  in  the  life  of  primitive  man  the  most  ordinary  kind 
of  disappointment  consists  in  the  want  of  food.  Imagine  a 
winter  month :  every  article  which  might  serve  as  food 
covered  by  snow  and  impossible  to  find,  for  weeks  or  longer, 
until  the  weather  changes.  An  animal  which,  under  these 
circumstances,  would  continue  to  run  about  for  food,  would 
soon  fall  dead  from  exhaustion.  However  adverse  the 
siluation,  the  body  can  survive  living  on  the  substances 
stored  away  in  its  own  tissues,  if  it  only  consumes  this  lim- 
ited supply  economically.  For  this  the  first  requirement  is 
that  all  muscular  activity  be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

Thus  we  understand  why  the  nervous  system,  in  a  dis- 
appointing situation,  tends  to  leave  the  skeletal  muscles  in 
a  state  of  relaxation.  A  person  in  great  sorrow  is  so  far 
from  being  master  of  his  skeletal  muscles  that  he  drops  like 
Romeo  in  Friar  Laurence's  cell,  falling  upon  the  ground  and 
"taking  the  measure  of  an  unmade  grave." 

A  disappointed  person  looks  like  the  face  on  the  left  side 
of  our  double  diagram  of  facial  expressions.  The  relaxa- 
tion of  the  facial  muscles  causes  the  angles  of  the  mouth  to 
be  pulled  down  by  the  weight  of  the  lower  jaw.  But  why 
should  such  a  face  look  pale? 

Recall  the  animal  just  spoken  of,  disappointed  in  its  food 
supply.  If  it  does  not  exercise  its  muscles,  little  or  no  heat 
is  produced,  for  the  skeletal  muscles  are,  physiologically, 
the  very  furnaces  of  the  body.  If  little  heat  is  produced, 
the  loss  of  heat  must  be  safeguarded  against.  Thus  the 
biological  value  of  the  contraction  of  the  muscles  in  the 
Vvalls  of  the  blood  vessels  becomes  evident.  The  contraction 
of  the  vessels  prevents  the  blood  from  circulating  much  in 
the  periphery  of  the  body  where  cooling  mainly  takes  place. 


214  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEK-ONE 

The  cooling  by  the  conduction  of  heat  through  the  tissues 
covering  the  body  is  little  to  be  feared  as  long  as  the  warm 
blood  is  kept  in  the  inner  parts  of  the  body  and  prevented 
from  circulating  through  the  periphery.  The  actual  cool- 
ing of  the  skin,  exciting  the  sensory  points  of  the  skin, 
causes  the  reflex  and  habitual  response  of  the  animal's  seek- 


FACIAL    EXPRESSION    IN    SORROW    AND 
IN    JOY    OR    ANGER. 

ing  shelter,  again  reducing  the  loss  of  heat,  of  physiological 
energ>'.  Thus  contraction  of  the  blood  vessels  of  the  skin 
keeps  the  animal  alive  until  a  change  of  the  external  con- 
ditions enables  it  to  resume  its  ordinary  manner  of  life. 

The  winter  sleep  of  animals  might,  in  a  sense,  be  called 
a  prolonged  emotion  of  sorrow.  But  in  this  case  the  sleep- 
ing reflexes  are  not  wasted.  In  the  case  of  Romeo  they 
are  wasted. 

Many  psychologists  attempt  to  place  each  class  of 
"emotions"  parallel  with  one  particular  class  of  "instincts." 
The  sleeping  reflexes  would  then  become  the  basis  both  of 
the  habit  or  "instinct"  of  acting  sleepy  or  lazy  and,  when 
wasted,  of  the  "emotion"  of  sorrow. 

The  reflexes  (3)  and  (5),  which  result  in  the  habits  or 
so-called  instincts  of  acquisition,  hoarding,  manipulation, 
might  then  well  be  said  to  be,  when  wasted,  the  bases  of  the 
emotions  of  joy  and  of  anger.  That  the  angry  person 
manipulates  things  too  much  and  very  wastefully,  is  suf- 
ficiently known.  And  the  joyful  person  "localizes,"  picks 
out,  not  this  or  that  thing,  but  the  whole  world,  in  order 


PLAYING  215 

to  "grasp,"  to  embrace  it, — but  ordinarily  to  no  good  pur- 
pose. The  strong  (primitive)  activity  of  grasping,  or  try- 
ing to  grasp,  with  the  jaws  (having  teeth  for  that  end) 
gives  the  face  the  feature  shown  on  the  right  side  of  our 
double  diagram  of  facial  expressions.  We  see  this  "grin- 
ning" both  in  what  we  call  joy  and  what  we  call  anger. 

The  horse,  standing  on  a  railway  track,  which  runs  away 
from  an  approaching  train,  is  not  said  to  display  an  emotion. 
It  demonstrates  its  negative  localizing  reflexes  (4).  But 
if  it  wastes  these  reflexes  by  running  away  from  a  news- 
paper flying  in  the  wind,  we  speak  of  it  as  having  an 
emotion. 

Sometimes  we  speak  of  "play"  rather  than  of  emotions, 
when  an  animal  exercises  its  reflexes  to  no  directly  useful 
end.  We  speak  of  play  especially  in  the  case  of  young  an- 
imals and  of  children,  where  wasted  reflexes  are  naturally 
more  frequently  seen  than  in  the  case  of  adults.  Even 
when  directly  wasted,  the  exercise  of  the  reflexes  may  be 
indirectly  helpful.  It  has  often  been  pointed  out  by  psy- 
chologists— and  quite  rightly,  it  seems — that  thru  play  the 
young  acquire  useful  habits  before  dire  necessity  demands 
their  acquisition. 

When  the  Other-One's  play  becomes  connected  with 
Art,  or  when  he  plays  with  a  work  of  Art  or  even  with  a 
product  of  Nature  like  a  beautiful  landscape  chiefly  by  ad- 
justing his  sense  organs  to  it,  we  say  that  he  has  an  "es- 
thetic" emotion.  He  calls  those  things  beautiful  which  he 
discovers  to  be  particularly  suitable  for  this  play  of  adjust- 
ing his  sense  organs.  And  by  Art  he  means  the  production 
of  such  things.  As  a  matter  of  course  with  advancing  age, 
experience  and  training  the  esthetic  emotions  become  in- 
finitely varied  by  becoming  interwoven  with  the  Other- 
One's  innumerable  habits. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Space  Perception  on  the  Skin  :  A  Species  of  Condensa- 
tion OF  THE  Nervous  Functioning. 

We  mean  by  a  spatial  perception  any  muscular  reaction 
which  can  be  regarded  as  based  on  the  positive  localizing 
reflexes  in  such  a  manner  that  for  two — or  any  larger  num- 
ber of— localizing  reactions  which  remain  unexecuted  an 
entirely  different  muscular  reaction,  serving  any  end  what- 
soever, is  substituted. 

The  equipment  which  Nature  has  given  the  Other-One 
in  order  to  make  localizing  movements  possible  has  already 
been  discussed  and  is  very  simple.  It  consists  of  a  large 
number  of  nervous  conductors,  reflex  paths,  each  starting 
at  a  particular  sensory  point  and  ending  in  that  set  of  muscle 
fibers  (schematically  speaking,  that  motor  point)  the  con- 
traction of  which  will  bring  a  movable  part  of  the  body, 
most  commonly  the  tip  of  the  index  finger  of  the  right 
hand,  into  the  neighborhood  of  the  sensory  point  in  ques- 
tion. We  say  advisedly  "neighborhood."  The  Other- 
One's  muscular  apparatus  works,  of  course,  with  a  certain 
inaccuracy.  This  would  show  itself  clearly  if  the  Other- 
One  would  localize,  "try  to  touch,"  the  same  sensory  point 
a  large  number  of  times,  perhaps  a  hundred  times,  and 
leave  a  mark  on  it  with  an  inked  point  of  the  finger  tip 
after  the  performance  of  each  localizing  movement. 

Suppose  the  sensory  point  to  be  touched  is  selected  on 
the  upper  arm  about  midway  between  the  shoulder  and  the 
elbow.  Suppose  we  consider  the  distribution  of  the  marks 
just  mentioned  only  in  the  direction  lengthwise  on  the  arm, 
and  disregard  completely  whether  the  marks  distribute  them- 
selves crosswise  in  any  manner  or  not.     In  the  distribu- 

(216) 


CUTANEOUS  THRESHOLD 


217 


tion  lengthwise  we  should  mark,  following  the  general 
scientific  custom,  the  two  points,  one  lying  toward  the 
shoulder,  the  other  toward  the  elbow  from  the  sensory 
point,  between  which  we  should  find  one  half  of  the  marks 
of  all  the  localizing  movements,  that  is,  fifty  of  the  hun- 
dred. Imagine,  in  order  to  have  something  definite  to 
speak  of,  that  the  distance  between  these  two  points  hap- 
pens to  be  just  an  inch  as  in  our  figure  between  the  vertical 


I    I    I    I    I  I  iM  I  1 1  1 1  mil 

s 


iiiiliiliiHiuiianamiiniiiiiiiiiiiiii 


nil  M  I  I  I  I  Ml    I   I     I     t     I      I       I 


MAK-KS   OF  THE  LOCALIZING   REFLEX. 

lines.  Now  imagine,  further,  that  you  are  assistant  to  the 
Creator  of  the  world  and  that  the  task  has  been  assigned  to 
you  of  placing  in  the  skin  of  the  arm,  from  shoulder  to  elbow, 
a  sufficient  number  of  sensory  points.  How  close  together 
would  you  place  them?  (Now  suppose  that  your  standard 
of  efficiency  happens  to  be  "half  and  half"  in  the  sense 
which  will  be  apparent  at  once.)  You  would  obviously  not 
waste  them  by  putting  them  closer  together  than  an  inch. 

Due  to  the  inaccuracy  of  the  execution  of  the  movement, 
one  half  of  the  marks,  we  supposed,  fell  farther  than  half 
an  inch  above  or  below  the  sensory  point.  If  you  place  the 
sensory  points  one  inch  apart,  half  of  the  marks  will  fall 
closer  to  the  sensory  point  touched  than  the  sensory  points 
untouched,  whose  localization  by  a  movement  is  not  de- 
manded by  any  present  need.  If  you  place  the  sensory 
points  closer  together,  fewer  and  fewer  than  one  half  can 
be  said  to  have  fallen  closer  to  the  sensory  point  touched 
than  to  the  sensory  points  untouched. 

It  would  obviously  be  a  waste  of  biological  building  ma- 
terial to  possess  sensory  points  which,  altho  untouched,  col- 
lect in  their  neighborhood  more  than  one  half  (or  more  than 


218  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

any  other  definite  fraction  which  represents  your  standard 
of  biological  efficiency  in  your  creation)  of  the  marks  which 
were  intended  for  a  different  point  as  a  target,  this  target 
receiving  then  in  its  neighborhood  only  a  certain  minority 
of  the  marks. 

We  have  here  one  of  the  reasons  why  creative  Nature 
should  place  a  rather  limited  number  of  sensory  points  in 
the  skin,  why  Nature  should  establish  what  is  technically 
called  a  threshold  of  sensibility,  and  a  rather  large  thresh- 
old. 

Of  course,  we  do  not  assert  that  Nature  may  not,  for 
this  or  that  other  reason,  distribute  the  sensory  points  less 
closely  or  more  closely  together  than  corresponds  to  the 
muscular  accuracy.  It  may,  for  example,  be  quite  sufficient 
for  an  animal's  need  of  protection,  if  the  sensory  points  are 
farther  apart,  because  the  animal's  paw  or  the  human  hand, 
in  making  a  localizing  movement,  is  capable  of  touching — 
covering — a  broad  area. 

By  the  way,  in  this  discussion  we  have  intentionally  not 
concerned  ourselves  with  the  fact  that  what  we  schematically 
call  a  sensory  point  is  not  a  geometrical  point,  but  an  area 
of  some  size  served  by  numerous  branches  of  the  same 
neuron  fiber  in  question.  Taking  up  the  study  of  these 
details  of  the  finer  anatomy  of  the  skin  would  be  likely  to 
carry  our  interest  from  psychology  into  physiology. 

An  experiment  will  make  the  further  discussion  more 
concrete.  We  ask  the  Other-One  to  close  his  eyes.  Then 
we  touch  him,  after  a  "ready"  signal,  lightly,  but  with  suf- 
ficient firmness  and  long  enough,  one  to  two  seconds,  with 
two  compass  points.  He  answers  our  question,  whether 
we  touched  him  with  one  point  or  with  two.  We  repeat  the 
experiment  with  a  different  distance.  If  we  choose  to 
make  the  distance  increase,  or  decrease,  with  regularity, 
we  must  touch  him  now  and  then  with  only  one  point  in 


SPATIAL    DISCBTMINATION  219 

order  to  test  his  sincerity.  If  he  answers  "two"  in  such  a 
case,  we  tell  him  that  we  have  no  use  for  him  as  a  subject 
of  experimentation. 

Finally  we  make  an  array  of  our  data,  with  distances 
regularly  changing  and  the  Other-One's  answer  to  each 
distance  added.  We  then  notice  at  one  end  of  the  array  only 
judgments  of  "one,"  at  the  other  end  only  judgments  of 
"two,"  and  in  the  middle  both  judgments  mixed.  The  dis- 
tance standing  in  the  center  of  this  "mixed"  region  we  call 
the  threshold. 

The  experiment  is  made  lengthwise  on  the  arm,  and  it  is 
also,  separately,  made  crosswise  on  the  arm.  The  most  in- 
teresting result  is  that  the  threshold  lengthwise  is  greater 
than  the  threshold  crosswise.  One  reason  for  this  will  be 
pointed  out  later. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  relation  between  the  experiment 
on  discrimination  as  just  described  and  the  localizing  reflex. 
At  the  first  glance  it  may  seem  that  (1)  localizing  a  point 
stimulated  and  (2)  calling  out  either  "one"  or  "two"  ac- 
cording as  two  nearer  or  farther  points  have  been  stim- 
ulated, are  two  forms  of  human  behavior  which  have  nothing 
in  common.  But  that  is  not  so.  They  are  very  closely 
related  functions.  The  latter  form  of  behavior  is  a  modifi- 
cation of  the  former,  a  habit  based  on  the  localizing  reflex. 

It  will  make  it  much  easier  for  us  to  understand  this, 
if  we  first  recall  what  reaction  is  most  commonly,  in  the 
Other-One's  life,  substituted  for  any  single  one  of  his  re- 
flex actions.  The  most  common  substitution  is  that  of 
"naming."  A  human  adult  whose  shoulder  is  irritated,  in 
innumerable  instances,  for  example  in  the  presence  of  his 
physician,  pronounces  the  word  "shoulder"  instead  of 
moving  his  finger  to  the  shoulder.  If  his  elbow  is  stim- 
ulated, he  pronounces  the  word  "elbow."  This  is  one  of 
the  most  common  habits  in  human  life,  reacting  by  a  word 


220  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

instead  of  reacting  by  a  directly  useful  muscular  activity. 
The  naming  reaction  is  indirectly  useful,  chiefly  thru  its 
social  consequences,  since  the  word  in  turn  is  likely  to 
bring  about  in  another  individual,  or  in  many  other  in- 
dividuals, that  directly  useful  reaction  which  the  person 
stimulated  did  not  perform.  When  the  Other-One  says 
"shoulder,"  his  physician  will  probably  put  his  finger  on 
the  Other-One's  shoulder. 

Now  imagine,  first,  that  the  following  happens.  The 
Other-One  is  touched  on  his  shoulder;  but  peculiar  neuro- 
muscular complications  delay  the  reaction.  His  shoulder 
is  touched  again ;  and  now  both  of  these  stimuli  are  re- 
sponded to  by  a  single  reaction,  perhaps  that  of  pronouncing 
the  word  "same."  Same  in  the  sense  that  the  muscular 
reactions  were  the  same.  No  one  will  deny  that  this  is 
possible,  that  an  animal  body,  instead  of  reacting  separately 
to  each  of  two  successive  stimuli,  reacts  to  both  of  them  in  a 
new  way  with  a  single  movement,  of  course  not  in  this  case 
reflexly,  but  in  consequence  of  habit  formation.  Secondly, 
imagine  that  the  Other-One's  shoulder  is  touched  first;  but 
special  conditions  again  delay  the  reaction.  His  elbow  is 
now  touched ;  and  both  these  stimuli  are  then  responded  to 
by  a  single  reaction,  perhaps  that  of  pronouncing  the  word 
"different."  Different  in  the  sense  that  the  muscular  reac- 
tions were  different,  as  they  naturally  must  have  been. 

It  is  clear  that  the  pronunciation  of  such  a  word  as 
"same"  or  "one"  in  the  former  case  and  of  such  a  M^ord  as 
"different"  or  "two"  in  the  latter  case  is  nothing  but  a 
peculiar  kind  of  habit,  consisting  in  a  single  reaction  occur- 
ring as  the  effect  of  two  (in  our  case  successive,  but  not 
necessarily  always  successive)  stimuli,  this  single  reaction 
taking  the  place  of  the  two  localizing  reflex  reactions  which 
originally  belonged  to,  were  causally  connected  with,  the 
two  stimuli. 


SPATIAL    DISCRIMINATION  221 

What  we  have  just  done,  has  been  nothing  but  a  logical 
analysis  and  clear  statement  of  what  is  meant  by  that  form 
of  behavior  which  we  customarily  call  "discrimination"  of 
two  points.  Let  us  now  return  to  the  result  of  our  ex- 
periment concerning  the  comparative  threshold  lengthwise 
and  crosswise  on  the  arm.  We  found  that  the  threshold 
was  considerably  larger  lengthwise  than  crosswise.  Why 
has  Nature  placed  the  sensory  points  closer  together  in  the 
direction  crosswise,  thus  increasing  in  this  direction  the 
number  of  distinct  reflex  actions  possible  and  also,  then, 
the  number  of  substituted  word  reactions  "different"  or 
"two"?  The  reference  to  a  limit  of  muscular  accuracy  in 
localizing  the  spot  obviously  is  no  answer  here.  We  can 
give  an  answer  to  this  question  which  is  applicable,  not  only 
to  the  arm,  but  to  the  whole  body  surface. 

The  sensory  points  are  the  closer,  the  greater  the  curva- 
ture of  the  surface  region  in  question,  the  farther  apart, 
the  less  the  curvature.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the 
curvature  crosswise  on  the  arm  is  much  greater  than  length- 
wise. We  then  have  before  us  the  same  question  in  dif- 
ferent terms.  Why  does  Nature  increase  the  number  of 
sensory  points  whenever  the  curvature  increases? 

This  question  can  be  answered  when  we  remember  that 
the  purpose  of  the  existence  of  sensory  points  on  the  body 
surface  is  a  localizing  reaction,  but  that  the  end  of  the 
localizing  limb  is  not  a  sharp  point.  A  finger  tip,  and  more 
so  a  flat  hand,  is  capable  of  covering  a  considerable  area, 
say,  of  the  arm,  in  the  localizing  reaction.  But  this  covered 
area  has  a  considerable  extent  only  lengthwise,  that  is, 
where  the  curvature  is  small.  Even  a  great  inaccuracy  of 
the  localization  lengthwise  will  still  result  in  the  stimulated 
part  being  covered  by  the  flat  hand,  as  when  we  swat  a 
mosquito  sitting  on  our  arm.  Not  so  crosswise.  If  the 
mosquito  moves  only  half  an  inch  or  so  in  the  direction 


222  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

crosswise,  the  striking  hand  will  not  kill  it.  To  kill  the 
mosquito  in  the  changed  position,  a  very  different  combina- 
tion of  contracting  muscles  is  required,  and  the  excitation 
must  be  carried  over  distinctly  different  conductors.  It  is 
immediately  clear,  then,  that  an  animal  needs  to  have  its 
sensory  points  on  the  body  surface  much  closer  together 
as  the  curvature  increases. 

It  may  be  wise  to  add  to  the  last  statement,  that  this  does 
not  imply  that  the  number  of  sensory  points  should  be  ex- 
pected to  be  strictly  proportional  to  the  curvature  as  defined 
in  mathematical  terms.  An  assertion  of  strict  proportion- 
ality would  lead  to  the  absurd  consequence  of  the  sensory 
points  being  an  infinite  distance  apart  where  the  body  sur- 
face has  no  curvature,  is  flat,  not  to  speak  of  the  still  more 
absurd  consequence  of  the  distance  between  the  sensory 
points  being  negative  where  the  surface  is  concave,  as  in 
the  palm  of  the  hand. 

For  reasons  which  are  apparent  in  a  discussion  of  space 
perception,  it  is  advisable  to  raise  the  question  as  to  how 
many  dimensions  are  involved  in  the  description  of  the 
mutual  relations  of  those  stimuli  which  call  forth  this  form 
of  behavior,  the  localizing  reaction  on  the  skin.  The  an- 
swer to  this  question  is  that  the  stimuli  may  all  be  described 
as  belonging  to  a  two-dimensional  space.  The  objection 
that  the  skin,  in  which  the  stimulated  sensory  points  are 
located,  obviously  fills  the  three  dimensions  of  common 
sense  space,  is  not  a  real  objection. 

Of  course,  nobody  making  this  objection  would  mean  by 
it  that  the  skin  has  thickness  and  in  this  respect  has  three 
dimensions.  The  stimuli  in  question  are  not  applied  to  a 
varying  depth  in  the  skin.  The  objection  could  have  a 
meaning  only  in  the  sense  that  the  skin  surrounding  the 
Other-One's  body  is  not  flat.  It  could  not  surround  the 
body  if  it  were  flat.     But  two-dimensionality  and  flatness 


CUTANEOUS  SPACE  PERCEPTION  223 

are  not  the  same,  mathematically.  We  can  make  this  clear 
even  in  purely  biological  terms,  leaving  all  abstract  mathe- 
matics aside.  Imagine  you  could  skin  the  Other-One  in 
such  a  way  that  all  the  nervous  conductors  having  endings 
in  the  skin  would  remain  intact.  Think  of  the  nerve  fibers 
as  being  stretchable,  like  rubber  threads.  Imagine  that  you 
had  spread  out  his  skin  on  the  flat  floor  like  a  fur  rug, 
without  in  the  least  interfering  with  any  of  the  normal 
nervous  connections  between  the  points  of  his  skin  and  the 
Other-One's  muscles.  It  then  becomes  clear  at  once  that 
the  skin  is  functionally  a  two-dimensional  structure.  You 
could  distribute  the  stimuli  over  the  (now  flat)  skin  lying 
on  the  floor  in  exactly  the  same  two-dimensional  relations 
as  before  (when  the  skin  surrounded  the  body)  and  call 
forth  in  the  Other-One  exactly  the  same  muscular  re- 
sponses. That  the  skin  is  curved  over  the  body,  obviously 
does  not  change  its  functional  two-dimensionality. 

We  therefore  say  that  the  space  perception  on  the  skin 
is  a  perception  of  only  two-dimensional  space.  But  the 
only  example  we  have  hitherto  given  of  this  space  percep- 
tion has  been  the  rather  simple  case  of  the  discrimination 
of  two  points.  Let  us  now  turn  to  cases  of  space  percep- 
tion which  are  a  little  more  complex,  and  see  whether  they 
too  can  be  reduced  to  habits  based  on  the  localizing  reflex. 

Imagine  the  following  case.  The  Other-One,  in  the 
dark,  is  trying  to  find  a  pen  point  which  he  knows  is  lying 
among  other  things  on  the  table  in  his  room.  He  puts  his 
hands  on  the  table.  A  number  of  sensory  points  forming 
an  oval  spot  on  the  skin  are  stimulated  by  contact  on 
his  right  hand.  A  number  of  sensory  points  along  one 
line  are  stimulated  on  his  left  hand.  He  ought  to  pick  up 
that  thing  which  is  lying  under  the  latter.  It  is  the  pen 
point  wanted.  What  is  lying  under  the  right  hand  is  a 
medal.    Of  course,  instead  of  using  both  hands,  the  Other- 


224 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 


One  may  put  the  same  hand,  first  on  the  one  thing,  then 
on  the  other. 

We  are  deahng  here  with  the  problem  of  the  perception 
of  spatial  form  reduced  to  simple  terms.  We  might  give 
names  to  the  sensory  points  and  call  them  for  the  pen  point 
a-c-e-g-i   (they  are,  of  course,  in  reality  much  more  nu- 


I  I  1  I  I  1  I  1  I  1  I 

a      b       c      d      e      f      g      T,      i      k      I 


I    1 


SPACE  PEECEPTION  AS  A  NERVOUS  FUNCTION. 

merous  than  five),  for  the  medal  b-e-g-1-o.  We  notice  that 
some,  but  not  all,  which  are  found  in  the  one  group,  are 
also  found  in  the  other.  We  may  imagine  that  the  reac- 
tion, say,  the  bending  or  the  stretching  of  the  arm  in  all  its 
joints,  is  anatomically  very  simple,  that  it  involves  the 
contraction  of  only  a  single  muscle,  the  passing  out  of  the 
nervous  current  at  a  single  motor  point.    The  nervous  func- 


SPACB   PERCEPTION    THE    REVERSE 
OF  MOTOR  CONCERTEDNESS. 

tion  is  then  exactly  the  opposite  of  what  we  have  called  on 
the  motor  side  concerted  action,  which  we  have  discussed  in 
a  previous  chapter.     Motor  concertedness  is  characterized 


CUTANEOUS  SPACE  PERCEPTION  225 

by  an  expansion  of  nervous  function  which  one  might  rep- 
resent by  a  fan-shaped  diagram  Hke  that  on  the  left  side  of 
our  figure,  at  A.  In  space  perception,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  let  the  "soldiers,"  so  to  speak,  who  started  out  marching 
in  open  formation,  arrive  at  their  aim,  M,  in  close  forma- 
tion, as  at  B  in  the  figure.  Here  they  arrive  as  a  single  unit 
of  motor  function,  in  the  other  case.  A,  as  five  units  of 
motor  function.  We  have  already  called  this,  in  contra- 
distinction to  concertedness,  condensation  of  the  nervous 
functioning,  or  "motor  condensation"  if  we  call  concerted- 
ness "sensory  condensation." 

Space  perception  then  is  a  species  of  condensation  of 
nervous  functioning.  Discrimination  of  two  points  on  the 
skin  is  the  very  simplest  example  of  space  perception.  An 
example  of  a  more  complex  discrimination  has  just  been 
given.  Another  example  would  be  that  of  reacting  dif- 
ferently to  three  stimuli  applied  to  points  forming  a  straight 
line  and  applied  to  three  points  marking  a  triangle.  Or 
distinguishing — of  course  again  by  different  muscular  re- 
actions, most  usually  the  names  pronounced — one  kind  of 
triangle  from  another  kind.  Or  one  triangle  from  another 
one  which  is  merely  larger. 

It  is  clear  that  in  thus  distinguishing  different  sizes  and 
different  forms,  some  of  the  group  of  sensory  points  call- 
ing for  the  one  reaction  may  be  identical  with  some  of  the 
sensory  points  of  the  group  calling  for  the  other  reaction. 
In  our  figure  "space  perception  as  a  nervous  function" 
this  is  expressed  by  the  fact  that  the  points  e  and  g  are 
found  in  both  the  groups  a-c-e-g-i  and  b-e-g-1-o. 

How  such  habits  of  space  perception  may  be  formed  on 
the  basis  of  the  localizing  reflexes,  we  have  illustrated  by 
the  example  of  the  discrimination  of  two  points  on  the 
skin.  But  we  must  not  think  that  all  space  perception,  all 
such  condensation  of  the  nervous  functioning,  results  mere- 


226  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

ly  from  habit  formation.  There  is  very  definite  evidence, 
especially  in  the  reflex  reactions  to  reflex  "signaling,"  that 
certain  kinds  of  space  perception  are  inherited.  But  since 
the  plainest  examples  are  found  in  visual  space  perception, 
we  shall  give  them  on  a  later  occasion  in  the  next  chapter 
rather  than  here  where  we  are  discussing  cutaneous  space 
perception. 

Space  perception  is  an  especially  fertile  field  for  the  cul- 
ture and  observation  of  so-called  illusions.  Any  wasted 
reflex  or  habit  may  be  called  an  illusion  (just  as  it  may  be 
called  an  emotion).  The  crowing  of  a  rooster  (a  signaling 
reflex)  may  be  called  an  illusion  of  the  rooster  when  there 
is  nobody  to  hear  the  sound.  Striking  a  table  with  a  fist 
when  nobody  is  present  to  be  caused  to  run  away  or  shrink 
from  the  person  who  does  it,  may  be  called  an  illusion. 
Swallowing  a  pill,  when  it  is  only  a  sugar-coated  pea,  may 
be  called  an  illusion.  In  the  last  mentioned  case,  the  action 
is  applied  to  something,  but  is  nevertheless  wasted  because 
it  is  misapplied. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  the  probability  of  an  action 
being  misapplied  is  especially  great  in  nervous  functions 
which  are  of  the  nature  of  a  condensation  of  the  totality  of 
the  nervous  currents.  If  the  currents  coming  from  b,  e,  g, 
1,  and  o  all  concentrate  toward  the  motor  point  Mq  in  our 
figure  and  four  of  them  (one  of  the  five  happening  to  be 
absent,  we  speak  of  the  other  four)  concentrate  ordinarily 
toward  some  different  motor  point  Mx,  it  is  only  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  mere  weakening  or  total  failure  of  that 
one  of  the  five  currents  should  once  in  a  while  be  insuf- 
ficient to  keep  the  other  four  from  concentrating  just  the 
same  toward  the  motor  point  Mq.  The  following  is  a  con- 
crete example. 

Perhaps  the  most  famous  illusion  in  cutaneous  space  per- 
ception is  that  which  goes  under  the  name  of  "Aristotle's 


ILLUSIONS  227 

illusion,"  which  indicates  how  long  it  has  been  known. 
Place  the  Other-One's  hand  palm  upwards  on  the  table 
and  cross  his  ring  finger  over  the  middle  finger.  The  tip 
of  the  ring  finger  then  lies  next  to  the  index  finger  and  the 
tip  of  the  middle  finger  next  to  the  little  finger.  Of  course, 
before  doing  any  of  these  things  you  have  already  blind- 
folded him.  Now  touch  gently  the  tips  of  the  crossed  fin- 
gers with  a  single  object,  for  example  a  bean  or  a  round 
pencil.  The  Other-One  will  then  probably  tell  you  that 
he  was  touched  by  two  things. 

The  explanation  is  simple  enough.  When  the  tip  of  the 
ring  finger  is  stimulated  on  the  side  which  ordinarily  lies 
next  to  the  little  finger  and  also  the  tip  of  the  middle  finger 
is  stimulated  on  the  side  which  lies  ordinarily  next  to  the 
index  finger,  the  Other-One  ordinarily  must  execute  two 
separate  localizing-grasping  movements  before  he  has 
"picked"  all  the  stimulating  objects.  He  has  learned  to 
substitute  the  word  "two"  if  he  substitutes  a  naming  reac- 
tion for  these  reflex  movements  of  "picking."  It  is  true, 
the  nervous  function  includes  in  such  a  case  also  the  excita- 
tion of  the  kinesthetic  sense  organs  in  the  muscles  which 
hold  the  fingers  parallel. 

Now,  in  the  experiment  in  which  the  subject  is  blind- 
folded, this  kinesthetic  excitation  is  not  the  proper  one. 
The  proper  one  is  not  there  (there  is  something  else  in  its 
stead).  But,  as  we  already  said,  the  absence  of  one  ner- 
vous current  among  several  in  the  case  of  nervous  condensa- 
tion does  not  always  keep  the  others  from  concentrating  in 
the  same  motor  point.  If  they  do  concentrate  in  the  same 
motor  point  (and  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  ancient  expe- 
rience, far  back  to  Aristotle,  they  frequently  do),  the  Other- 
One  tells  us  "two."  Of  course,  his  reaction  is  not  always 
and  by  absolute  necessity  saying  "two;"  but  frequently, 
perhaps  in  a  majority  of  the  cases,  he  does  say  "two." 


228  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE. 

It  is  an  illusion  because  the  response  is  misapplied.  The 
Other-One  will  quickly  admit  that  the  response  "two"  was 
misapplied,  was  "wasted,"  when  we  uncover  his  eyes.  We 
ask  him  to  pick  up  and  give  us  the  two  beans.  But  after 
having  picked  up  one,  he  finds  no  second  bean  to  pick  up. 


CHAPTER  X 

Nature  Enables  the  Other-One  to  Perceive  Space 

AT  A  Distance. 

The  eye  must  be  regarded  as  a  group  of  sensory  points 
of  the  skin  whose  sensitivity  has  been  changed  so  that  they 
can  be  stimulated,  no  longer  by  pressure  very  easily,  but  by 
certain  ether  waves,  by  light,  even  when  this  light  is  only 
very  weak.  In  our  chapter  on  reflexes  we  referred  to  the 
fact  that  the  sensory  points  of  the  Other-One's  retina  have 
been  equipped  by  Nature  with  definite  reflexes.  When  the 
lower  region  of  his  retina  is  stimulated,  his  arm  moves  up ; 
and  so  forth.  We  called  these  reflexes  positive  localization 
in  the  outw^ard  direction.  From  them  is  derived,  by  con- 
densation of  the  nervous  functioning,  space  perception  at  a 
distance,  just  as  space  perception  on  the  skin  is  derived 
from  the  localizing  reflexes  of  the  skin. 

Let  us  mention  a  concrete  example  from  the  Other-One's 
life.  One  evening,  long  after  sunset,  we  find  him  walking 
in  the  wilderness  trying  to  discover  a  resting  place  for  the 
night,  a  human  habitation.  On  his  right  there  is  a  hill ;  on 
his  left  another.  Over  the  latter  appears  a  bright  spot 
which  is  round.  Over  the  former  there  is  a  bright 
spot  which  is  rectangular.  He  ought  to  turn  to  the  right 
where  he  will  approach  an  illuminated  window.  Over  the 
hill  to  the  left  there  is  something  he  could  never  hope  to 
approach,  the  moon. 

Obviously,  the  case  is  in  all  essentials  the  same  as  that, 
discussed  in  the  last  chapter,  of  discriminating  by  distinct 
reactions  a  pen  and  a  medal,  both  touching  the  skin.     In- 

(229) 


230  PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

stead  of  the  localizing  reflexes  serving  the  skin,  we  find 
here  those  serving  the  retina.  And  just  as  there,  so  we 
find  here  a  substituted  motor  function.  For  several,  a 
definite  group  of,  localizing  reflexes  a  single  habit  is  sub- 
stituted, the  habit  of  approaching  the  illuminated  rectangle, 
and  of  leaving  behind  one's  back  the  luminous  disk.  With 
the  localizing  reflexes  of  the  retina  we  are  already  ac- 
quainted. In  discussing  the  localizing  reflexes  we  spoke  of 
the  fact  that  the  eye  ball  functions  like  a  pin  hole  camera 
(it  actually  is  a  lens  camera)  and  that  the  establishment 
of  reflex  paths  here  is  as  simple  a  problem  for  the  archi- 
tect of  the  nervous  system  as  it  is  in  localization  on  the 
skin. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  those  condensations  of  the  nervous  functioning  which 
we  call  space  perceptions  are  not  entirely  the  result  of 
habit  formation,  that  certain  space  perceptions  are  pro- 
vided by  the  inheritance  of  nerve  centers  higher  than  those 
which  serve  the  simple  localizing  reflexes.  We  promised 
to  give  an  example  of  inherited  visual  space  perception. 
We  can  noAv  give  it.  This  example  has  already  been  men- 
tioned in  a  previous  chapter,  but  there  for  a  different  pur- 
pose. We  discussed  the  fact  that  animals  as  well  as  in- 
fants possess  by  inheritance  reflexes  of  reacting  to  signals 
of  form  which  are  given  out  by  other  animals  (or  animal- 
like things,  as  we  shall  see).  We  illustrated  the  discus- 
sion with  a  simple  figure  being  a  sketch  of  the  main  fea- 
tures of  a  stuffed  puppet. 

These  features  are  a  circular  or  oval  border  line  and 
within  it  a  triangle  (a  "snout")  below,  and  two  smaller 
circles  ("eyes")  above.  The  fact  that  young  and  entirely 
inexperienced  babies  react  to  such  a  form  with  the  nega- 
tive localizing  reflexes,  in  ordinary  life  called  "fear,"  shows 


INHERITED  AND  OTHER  NERVOUS  CONDENSATIONS      231 

beyond  doubt  that  they  possess  this  condensation  of  nerv- 
ous functioning,  "spatial  perception."  Instead  of  several 
(a  large  possible  number  of)  positive  localizing  reflex  ac- 
tions, one  substitute  action  occurs,  which  happens  to  be  in 
this  instance  a  negative  localizing  reflex. 

How  the  habit  formation  and  the  functioning  of  estab- 
lished habits  in  visual  space  perception  are  influenced  by 
the  geometrical  relations  between  the  sensory  points  on  the 
retina,  becomes  evident  in  a  study  of  the  geometric-opti- 
cal illusions.  We  shall  presently  give  a  number  of  especial- 
ly striking  and  typical  examples  of  such  illusions.  Let  us 
remember  that  such  illusions  are  "wasted"  reactions.  And 
let  us  keep  in  mind  in  the  following  discussions  that  until 
the  contrary  is  especially  stated,  we  shall  concern  ourselves 
with  the  two-dimensional  visual  space  perceptions,  that  is, 
those  where  the  location  of  the  sources  of  the  emanating 
stimuli  is  completely  described  by  reference  to  the  so- 
called  "field  of  vision."  For  the  present  we  leave  "depth" 
out  of  consideration. 

The  geometric-optical  illusions  furnish  striking  illustra- 
tions of  the  fact  that  space  perception  is  a  species  of  con- 
densation of  the  nervous  function.  By  various  factors  we 
can  guide  the  special  direction  which  the  condensation  takes 
in  the  nervous  system.  Thus  we  can  vary  the  reaction  in 
the  most  astonishing,  often  seemingly  contradictory,  illogi- 
cal, wasteful  manner,  without  essentially  changing  the  form 
of  the  object,  that  is,  without  essentially  changing  the  partic- 
ular sensory  points  stimulated. 

Let  us  ask  the  Other-One  which  two  of  the  upper  three 
lines,  a,  b,  and  c,  in  our  figure  are  the  continuations  of  the 
lower  two  lines,  d  and  e.  Maybe  the  Other-One  will  re- 
fuse to  answer  our  question  and  rather  say  that  none  are 
continuations,  that  d  and  e  pass  thru  the  vacant  spaces  be- 


232  PSYCHOLOGY   OF    THE   OTHER-OXE 

tween  a,  b,  and  c,  as  they  actually  do.  But  if  he  answers 
it  as  it  is  put,  he  will  certainly  not  say  b  and  c.  He  will 
say  a  and  b.  Why? — Some  psychologists  have  held  the 
vertical  lines  responsible  for  this  choice.  They  have  said 
that  the  illusion  is  due  to  the  overestimation  of  the  acute 
angles  formed  by  the  lines  of  the  figure. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  there  is  a  tendency  to  overesti- 
mate acute  angles  and  underestimate  obtuse  angles.  And 
the  reason  for  it  is  clear.  Look  in  one  of  the  corners  of 
your  room  at  the  angles  you  see  there.  They  are  three 
obtuse  angles.  But  you  know  that  in  reality  they  are  three 
right  angles.  Right  angles  are  exceedingly  common  in 
architecture  and  furniture.  They  are  common  enough  also 
in  trees,  since  these  generally  stand  vertical  on  the  ground. 
A  log  or  trunk  of  a  fallen  tree  lying  at  the  foot  of  a  living 
one  and  forming  a  right  angle  is  nothing  rare.  So  every- 
body is  very  familiar  with  the  fact  that  angles  which  are 
apparently  acute  are  in  reality  often  larger  than  they  seem. 
These  experiences  may  have  some  influence  on  the  esti- 
mated size  of  acute,  and  in  the  opposite  manner  of  obtuse, 
angles. 

But  that  this  influence  must  be  small  and  cannot  be  the 
deciding  factor  in  the  Other-One's  illusion  just  mentioned, 
becomes  clear  when  we  make  him  look  at  the  middle  of 
our  figure.  Which  two  of  the  upper  lines,  f,  g,  and  h.  are 
the  continuations  of  the  lower  two  lines,  i  and  k?  The  illu- 
sion is  just  as  strong  altho  there  are  no  vertical  lines  nor 
angles.  And  let  no  one  introduce  "imaginary,"  merely  sug- 
gested, lines  as  explaining  the  illusion. 

Imagination,  when  we  speak  of  the  Other-One,  is  only  a 
synonym  for  his  "habits"  of  handling  the  things  in  question, 
for  example,  of  drawing  lines  in  a  thing  or  design  which 
is  given  to  him  without  them.     Now,  that  he  may  have  and 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  INTERVAL 


233 


use  habits  of  drawing  lines,  we  need  not  deny.  And  that 
these  habits  influence  the  acquisition  or  the  function  of 
other  habits  such  as  answering  our  question  addressed  to 


NERVOUS   CONDENSATION    DEPENDING    ON    DISTANCE    OF   POINTS 

STIMULATED. 

him,  we  need  not  deny.  But,  if  we  can  find  a  more  directly 
acting  cause  for  his  manner  of  answering  our  question, 
this  direct  cause  will  interest  us  much  more  than  those  in- 
direct, contributing,  causes. 

We  need  not  introduce  any  new  principle  of  explanation. 
We  merely  remember  what  we  have  asserted  about  space 
perception  in  general.  Two  lines  are  called  by  the  Other- 
One  a  single  line  under  certain  conditions,  just  as  two 
points  are  called  one  point  under  certain  conditions.  Two 
points  and  two  lines  are  the  more  easily  regarded  as  one, 
that  is,  as  each  other's  continuations,  the  more  the  nervous 
currents  coming  from  the  points  stimulated — other  condi- 
tions being  equal — unite  to  act  as  one  current.  We  can 
also  express  this  thus :  the  more  completely  the  total  nerv- 
ous function  is  condensed  into  one  motor  point. 

Where  the  distance  between  two  stimulated  points  is  far 
less  than  the  threshold,  the  fulfilment  of  the  condition  just 
mentioned  is  obvious.     It  is  then  due  solely  to  our  natural 


234  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

equipment.  Where  the  distance  between  two  stimulated 
points  is  considerably  greater  than  the  threshold  and  never- 
theless the  response  demonstrates  that  there  has  been  con- 
densation of  the  nervous  functioning,  the  condensation,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  a  habit.  Such  a  habit  must  be  formed 
quite  naturally  whenever  the  successful  localizing  reflex 
"number  1"  makes  the  success  of  the  localizing  reflex  "num- 
ber 2"  impossible, — for  example,  if,  after  "grasping"  one 
of  the  lines  or  sticks  (whatever  they  may  actually  be),  the 
Other-One  finds  no  second  line  or  stick  any  more  to  grasp. 

This  habit,  once  formed,  altho  it  is  a  habit  of  reacting 
to  stimulations  farther  apart  than  the  threshold,  cannot 
in  its  functioning  be  entirely  independent  of  the  distance 
being  very  large  or  only  moderately  (tho  always  above  the 
threshold)  large.  Surely,  when  the  distance  of  the  points 
stimulated  is  larger,  the  condensation  must  be  less  liable  to 
occur ;  and  when  the  distance  is  less  large,  the  condensa- 
tion must  be  more  likely  to  occur.  Where  instead  of  points 
we  have  lines,  the  distance  just  referred  to  as  being  greater 
or  less  must  be  the  distance  between  the  end  points  marking 
the  break,  the  discontinuity.  Other  conditions  (which  might 
also  be  determinants  of  the  condensation)  being  equal,  we 
must  accept  the  rule  that,  the  less  the  distance,  the  greater 
the  probability  of  condensation  of  the  nervous  functioning. 
Or,  is  it  not  true  that  in  our  actual  and  practical  experi- 
ence, whenever  the  middle  part  of  what  seems  a  crooked 
stick  is  invisible,  the  stick  is  the  more  frequently  found  to 
be  a  single  crooked  stick,  and  the  less  frequently  found  to 
be  two  separate  straight  pieces,  the  closer  together  lie  the 
ends  of  the  two  visible  straight  pieces? 

This  rule  applied  to  our  illusion  diagram  explains  the 
Other-One's — at  first  surprising — answer  quite  readily.  It 
is  true  that  the  "nervous  current  i"   (one  will  understand 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  INTERVAL  235 

what  is  meant  by  this  abbreviated  phrase)  may,  on  abstract 
logical  grounds,  no  more  easily  unite  with  "the  current  f  " 
and  pass  with  it  into  a  unitary  motor  outlet  than  with  the 
"nervous  current  g."  This  is  certainly  true  so  far  as  the 
mere  direction  and  position  of  the  stimulating  lines  are 
concerned.  The  lines  are  parallel  and  a  definite  distance 
apart.  Why  not  call  them  two? — But  from  the  nearest 
end  of  the  line  i  to  the  nearest  end  of  the  line  g  is  a  much 
greater  distance  than  to  the  nearest  end  of  the  line  f. 

Thus  it  goes  almost  without  saying  that  condensation 
occurs  much  more  easily  with  reference  to  the  nearer  neigh- 
bors i  and  f ;  and  that  the  Other-One  will  more  frequently 
call  i  and  f  together  "one  straight  line  with  an  accidental 
break  in  the  middle"  than  i  and  g  together. 

For  further  demonstration  of  the  much  greater  impor- 
tance of  closeness  than  of  any  other  factor  contributing 
toward  condensation  of  the  nervous  functioning  let  us  look 
at  the  right  side  of  the  last  figure.  Which  two  of  the  three 
upper  lines,  1,  m,  and  n,  are  the  continuations  of  the  lower 
lines,  o  and  p?  There  is  no  preference  here,  no  illusion. 
It  makes  no  difference  whether  we  draw  vertical  lines  thru 
the  endpoints  or  not.  Even  when  we  have  drawn  them  and 
the  angles  are  quite  clearly  seen,  so  that  the  Other-One  is 
in  no  manner  kept  from  overestimating  the  acute  ones,  he 
does  not  "waste"  his  reaction.  The  distances  are  here  the 
same  between  the  end  point  of  o  and  the  end  points  of  1 
and  m ;  the  same  between  the  end  point  of  p  and  the  end 
points  of  m  and  n.  It  is  therefore  not  to  be  expected  that 
either  the  pair  1  and  m  should  be  preferred  to  the  pair  m  and 
n  or  the  latter  pair  to  the  former,  when  the  question  is 
raised  how  the  lines  o  and  p  are  to  be  continued  upwards. 
That  is,  there  is  no  cause  for  any  illusion. 


236  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

If  on  tl^ie  contrary  the  angles  were  powerful  factors,  the 
Other-One  should  have  an  illusion  in  spite  of  the  equality 
of  the  breaks.  Since  he  scarcely  has  any  illusion,  it  is  clear 
that  his  habitual  overestimation  of  acute  angles  is  not  the 
chief  cause  of  this  illusion  here.  The  cause  of  the  illusion 
is  much  more  fundamental,  much  more  elementary.  As 
we  have  seen,  it  consists  in  the  simple  fact  that  sensory 
points  on  the  retina  (and  the  same  rule  holds  for  the  skin) 
which  are  closer  together  are  more  likely  to  be  function- 
ally joined  by  what  we  have  called  condensation  than  sen- 
sory points  which  are  farther  apart. 

Another  important  fact  must  be  mentioned  here.  Psy- 
chologists have  often  relied  too  much  on  mere  logic.  If 
for  two  reactions  (localizing  reflexes)  a  single  new  reac- 
tion (saying  "one")  is  "substituted,"  then  the  single  re- 
actions are  "excluded."  So  logic  rules.  But  the  facts  are 
otherwise. 

Most  striking  is  this  event  in  the  discrimination  of  two 
points ;  and  there  is  no  essential  difference  between  dis- 
crimination on  the  skin  and  on  the  retina  in  this  respect. 
The  Other-One  sometimes  says :  "I  call  it  one  and  am  a 
little  inclined  to  call  it  also  two."  (Of  course,  this  happens 
only  in  the  neighborhood  of  or  somewhat  below  the  thresh- 
old, unless  the  Other-One  is  a  pure  guesser  and  insincere 
subject.)  It  is  impossible  to  interpret  away  the  lack  of 
logic  of  the  statement.  However,  what  has  formal  logic 
to  do  with  the  case?  Near  the  threshold  the  condensa- 
tion is  pronounced  enough  to  bring  forth  the  substituted  re- 
action "one"  and  yet  not  enough  pronounced  so  that  cur- 
rents of  considerable  strength  will  not  be  able  to  get  still 
to  the  reflex  motor  points  of  localizing  each  point  separate- 
ly.   Why  should  this  not  be  so?     It  is  perfectly  natural. 

In  the  following  figure  of  incomplete  circles  there  is  a 
further  illustration  of  the  principle  of  nervous  "condensa- 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  INTERVAL. 


237 


tion  depending  on  distances."  At  A  the  little  vertical 
dash  (small  arc)  on  the  right  does  not  seem  to  belong  to 
the  circle.  It  seems  to  lie  too  far  to  the  right.  With  refer- 
ence to  B  we  ask  the  Other-One  the  question:  "Which 
two  of  the  three  vertical  dashes  (small  arcs)  on  the  right 


III 


ANOTHER     EXAMPLE     DEMONSTRATING     NERVOUS    CONDENSATION. 

belong  to  the  two  circles?" — He  tells  us:  "The  two  left 
ones."  Why  does  he  not  tell  us  "The  two  right  ones?"  The 
circles  have  intermediate  positions  relative  to  the  locations 
of  the  circular  continuations  of  the  dashes.  Therefore, 
logically  one  of  these  answers  should  be  as  probable  as  the 
other.  Actually  the  second  answer  never  occurs.  The 
greater  nearness  between  the  end  points  at  the  break  deter- 
mines the  answer.  The  nervous  currents  of  the  two  right 
dashes  do  not  together  with  the  nervous  currents  of  the 
circles  lead  to  the  single  motor  response  "one  ring."  The 
distance  of  the  end  points  is  (relatively)  too  great. 

At  C  the  two  large  arcs  are,  in  a  geometrical  sense,  in- 
termediate between  the  three  small  arcs.  No  two  of  the 
arcs  are  parts  of  a  single  one  of  the  concentric  circles,  of 
which  there  are  actually  five.  But  if  you  ask  the  Other- 
One  which  two  of  the  three  arcs  on  the  right  he  would  pre- 
fer to  call  the  continuations  of  the  two  arcs  on  the  left, 
he  will  choose  the  outer  ones.  He  will  not,  as  in  the  pre- 
ceding case,  choose  the  inner  ones.  It  is  perfectly  clear, 
why.     The  end  points  of  the  two  outer  arcs  on  the  right 


238 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 


in  this  case  are  closer  to  the  end  points  of  the  left  arcs; 
the  end  points  of  the  two  inner  arcs  on  the  right  are  farther 
from  the  end  points  of  the  left  arcs.  So  the  former  nerv- 
ous currents  enter  more  readily  into  a  condensed  func- 
tion ;  the  latter  currents  tend  more  to  remain  an  expanded 
nervous  function. 

There  are,  however,  geometric-optical  illusions  (that  is, 
we  remember,  "wasted"  space  perceptions)  in  which  ap- 
pears clearly  the  overestimation  of  acute  (and  underesti- 
mation of  obtuse)  angles.  This  tendency  to  regard  angles 
as  more  approaching  in  size  a  right  angle  than  they  actual- 
ly do,  is  illustrated  very  conspicuously  as  the  main  factor 


THE   WRONG   ESTIMATION    OF   ANGLES    (PEE!SPECTIVE)    SEEMS  TO 

CAUSE   THE    TROUBLE. 

of  the  illusion  in  the  figure  where  two  parallel  slanting 
lines  are  the  stimulus  to  which  the  Other-One  responds 
by  saying  that  they  are  curves  tending  to  surround  the 
upper  and  the  lower  centers  of  radiation. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  principle  of  "nervous  condensa- 
tion depending  on  distances"  is  again  clearly  brought  out 
by  the  three  slanting  lines,  which,  because  of  the  nature  of 


AREAS  COMPETING  WITH  POINTS 


239 


the  lines  which  mark  their  endings,  the  Other-One  most 
probably  will  pronounce  as  of  unequal  length.  It  is  a  story- 
like  that  told  of  the  founder  of  Rome,  who  bought  as  a 
site  for  his  city  just  enough  land  to  permit  him  to  spread 
out  a  cowhide.  But  he  was  careful  to  cut  the  hide  into  a 
very  long  and  narrow  strap  before  he  spread  it  on  the 
ground.  In  R  the  stimulated  sensory  points  which  mark 
the  ends  of  the  line  spread  out  forming,  so  to  speak,  two 
triangles.  The  vertices  of  the  triangles  lose  their  signifi- 
cance in  comparison  with  the  inclosed  areas.  The  nervous 
currents  of  these  endpoints  are  quite  likely,  therefore,  to 
fail  to  play  in  the  condensation  of  the  nervous  function 
that  role  of  relative  importance  which  they  ought  to  play 
in  comparison  with  the  triangle  areas.     Since  the  triangles 


DIFFERENT    FORMS    OF    NERVOUS    CONDENSATION    RESULT    HERB    IN 
SO.ME   "WASTED"    IVEACTIONS. 

are  relatively  near  each  other,  the  response  resulting  from 
the  condensation  is  accordingly  that  of  calling  the  ends  of 
the  thing  "near"  or  the  whole  thing  "short." 


240  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

In  S,  on  the  other  hand,  the  nervous  currents  represent- 
ing the  forks  which  spread  out  and  inclose  the  triangle- 
shaped  areas,  when  they  play  their  undue  role  and  enter 
strongly  into  the  condensation  of  the  nervous  functioning, 
call  forth  a  "wasted"  response  of  naming  the  thing  "long." 

In  T  the  end  marks  do  not  include  such  areas,  which  can 
either  extend  the  figure  or  cramp  its  length  especially.  So 
the  Other-One  is  likely  to  call  S  longer  than  T,  and  R 
shorter  than  T. 

The  space  perceptions  (or  illusions)  hitherto  discussed 
are  essentially  two-dimensional  space  perceptions.  That  is, 
no  express  reference  is  contained  in  them  to  distances  from 
the  eye  varying  with  different  objects  or  different  objective 
points  from  which  stimuli  emanate.  Such  reference  to  the 
third  dimension,  depth,  or  distance  from  the  Other-One 
may,  however,  be  said  to  have  been  implied,  tho  not  ex- 
pressed, when  we  spoke  of  the  underestimation  of  the  ob- 
tuse angles  in  the  corner  of  a  room  and  its  ceiling.  The 
Other-One  there  underestimates  angles  which  are  obtuse 
only  because  in  reality  their  lines  lie  outside  of  the  two 
dimensions  of  the  field  of  vision  in  which  they  apparently 
lie. 

Very  numerous  are  those  two-dimensional  space  percep- 
tions (themselves  substitutes  for  localizing  reflexes,  as  we 
saw)  for  which  in  turn  a  "depth"  localizing  habit  function 
is  expressly  substituted.  The  substitution,  that  is,  consists 
in  extending  a  limb  farther  or  less  far  into  the  depth.  Such 
substituted  habit  functions  fully  deserve  the  name  of  per- 
ceptions of  the  third  dimension.  (But  there  are  other  per- 
ceptions of  the  third  dimension,  to  be  discussed  later,  which 
are  not  substitutes  for  two-dimensional  space  perceptions, 
but  for  other  reactions.)  Of  the  two-dimensional  space 
perceptions  thus  utilizable  the  following  list  contains  those 


TWO  DIMENSIONS  AND  THE  THIRD 


241 


with  which  everybody  is  most  famiHar.  But  there  are  many 
others.  They  are  a  most  important  subject  of  study  for 
the  artist  in  black  and  white  and  for  the  painter  in  colors. 


TWO-DIMENSIONAL   SPACE    PERCEPTIONS    REPLACED    BV   LOCALIZING 
IN  THE  THIRD   DIMENSION. 


1. 

2. 
3. 

(C). 
4. 

(F). 
5. 

6. 


Relative  size  of  similar  forms  (A). 

High  or  low  position  in  the  field  of  vision  (B), 

Transposition  or  cutting  of  one  picture  by  another 

Shadow  above  (D),  below  (E),  or  on  another  object 


Indistinctness  or  lack  of  details. 
Atmospheric  perspective  or  change  in  coloring. 
The  smaller  of  two  houses,  instead  of  being  called  smaller 
in  the  field  of  vision,  may  be  called  more  distant.  A  house, 
instead  of  being  described  as  standing  higher  in  the  field  of 
vision,  may  be  called  more  distant  than  another  house  which 
appears  lower.  An  oak  tree  which  cuts  a  house  is 
called  nearer  than  a  fir  tree  which  is  cut  by  the  house.  A 
round  place  in  the  wall,  dark  above  and  illuminated  below 


242  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

is  called  a  depression — maybe  one  made  by  a  cannon  ball. 
If  illuminated  above  and  shaded  below,  it  is  called  a  pro- 
trusion— perhaps  the  cannon  ball  itself,  fastened  with  mor- 
tar in  the  hole.  The  shadow  of  a  tree  on  the  ground,  when 
the  sun  is  beyond,  gives  to  this  patch  of  ground  the  name  of 
"nearer."  Indistinctness,  lack  of  details  on  a  person  seen, 
is  interpreted  as  greater  distance  in  comparison  with  an- 
other person  who  shows  more  details.  Mountains  which 
appear  bluish  gray  or  lights  which  appear  reddish  (altho 
this  feature  is  not  form,  but  color,  it  may  be  mentioned  in 
this  connection)  are  called  farther  than  mountains  which 
appear  greenish  and  lights  which  appear  more  whitish. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  substitutions  (these  substitu- 
tions which  so  often  are  far  more  valuable  to  the  Other- 
One  than  the  replaced  reactions!),  after  having  become 
firmly  established  functions,  sometimes  proceed  in  the  other 
direction.  The  following  illustrates  this.  The  moon  stimu- 
lates on  the  retina  an  area  of  virtually  the  same  size  no 
matter  whether  it  is  high  or  low  above  the  horizon.  The 
atmospheric  influences,  when  the  moon  is  low,  affect  its 
color,  but  hardly  the  area  stimulated  on  the  retina.  Why, 
then,  does  the  Other-One  call  the  moon  larger,  when  he 
sees  it  low? 

Now,  to  the  Other-One  the  Earth  is  essentially  a  flat 
disk  covered  by  a  crystalline  bowl,  the  sky.  The  moon  is 
a  luminous  spot  on  this  bowl.  The  depth  of  this  overhead 
bowl  is  less  than  half  its  diameter.  A  bright  spot  at  the 
rim  (the  far  off  rim!)  of  this  bowl,  which  stimulates  on 
the  retina  an  area  no  smaller  than  that  stimulated  by  a 
bright  spot  at  the  bottom  (the  near  bottom!)  of  the  bowl, 
deserves  therefore  to  be  called  a  spot  much  larger  than  the 
latter.  Thus  the  Other-One  calls  the  moon  larger  when  he 
sees  it  at  the  horizon,  at  the  rim  of  the  crystalline  bowl. 


TWO  DIMENSIONS  AND  THE  THIRD  243 

Being  reddish  helps  a  little  in  this  illusion,  for  a  lantern 
being  carried  away  and  disappearing  finally  in  the  fog  be- 
comes more  reddish  the  farther  it  is  carried. 

We  can  ask  the  Other-One  to  convince  himself  by  an  ex- 
periment of  the  cause  for  calling  that  bright  spot  larger 
when  he  sees  it  at  the  rim  of  the  shallow  crystalline  bowl. 
We  make  him  look  steadily  for  several  minutes  at  a  small 
piece  of  bright-colored  paper  on  the  table  before  him.  When 
now  he  looks  aside,  he  tells  us  that  he  sees  an  after-image. 
But  when  we  make  him  look  aside,  we  make  him  look,  not 
only  on  the  table,  but  also  on  the  distant  wall  of  the  room. 
He  then  tells  us  that  he  sees  the  after-image  on  the  wall 
much  larger  than  on  the  table.  This  experiment  shows 
again,  that  not  only  is  a  judgment  of  distance  (that  is,  the 
action  of  calling  a  thing  distant)  often  substituted  for  a 
judgment  of  size,  but  that  also  size  may  be  substituted  for 
distance  by  simply  reversing  the  former  substitution. 

All  these  substituted  actions  to  which  we  have  referred 
above  under  the  common  title  of  "space  perceptions  of  the 
third  dimension"  are  undoubtedly  habits,  acquired.  There 
is  no  reason  for  assuming  that  mere  heredity  enables  the 
Other-One  to  call  a  thing  (not  necessarily  by  speech,  but 
say,  by  any  suggestive  action)  nearer  or  farther  as  soon  as 
he  has  once  acquired  the  habit  of  calling  it  by  one  or  the 
other  name  found  in  the  above  list  of  two-dimensional  space 
perceptions. 

Not  all  visual  space  perceptions  of  the  thiid  dimension, 
however,  are  substitutions  for  space  perceptions  in  the  two 
dimensions  of  the  field  of  vision.  Some  perceptions  of  the 
third  dimension  are  substitutions  for  (or  rather  additions 
to)  certain  reflex  movements  which  we  have  already  more 
or  less  discussed  when  we  spoke  of  the  reflexes  of  adjust- 
ing our  sense  organs.     The  reflex  of  exposing  the  fovea 


244  PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

to  stimulation  and  the  reflex  of  accommodating  the  lens 
have  such  additional  actions  joined  to  them  that  they  be- 
come habits  of  perception  of  depth. 

If  the  lens  is  first  accommodated  for  a  thing  at  one  dis- 
tance and  then  for  a  thing  at  another  distance,  the  action 
of  calling  one  of  these  things  nearer  and  the  other  farther 
can  easily  be  added  to  the  adjusting  actions.  What  is 
added  is  a  perception  of  depth,  in  accordance  with  the  usu- 
al psychological  terminology.  We  understand,  of  course, 
from  all  that  has  been  said  already,  that  the  perception  does 
not  always  consist  in  the  pronunciation  of  a  word,  a  name. 
It  may  as  well  consist  in  stretching  the  arm  farther  or  less 
far,  throwing  a  stone  with  more  or  less  force,  and  so  forth. 
In  this  case  of  accommodation  it  is  not  necessary,  natural- 
ly, for  the  Other-One  to  have  two  eyes  in  order  to  perceive 
depth.  Accommodation  occurs  also  in  the  one-eyed  per- 
son. 

The  reflex  of  exposing  the  fovea  places  the  axes  of  the 
eyes  so  that  they  form  the  so-called  angle  of  convergence. 
Instead  of  speaking  of  the  "adjusting  reflex  of  the  retina," 
one  might  therefore  speak  of  the  "reflex  of  forming  the 
angle  of  convergence."  But,  of  course,  the  Other-One  must 
have  two  eyes  for  this,  since  one  line  alone  can  not  form 
an  angle.  He  adds  to  the  movement  of  forming  this  angle 
an  appropriate  reaction  of  the  perception  of  depth. 

Nature  undoubtedly  could  have  equipped  the  Other-One 
by  heredity  with  reflexes  of  "localizing  in  more  or  less 
depth,"  making  these  reflexes  dependent  on  and  quickly  fol- 
lowing the  adjusting  reflexes  of  accommodation  of  the  lens 
and  of  forming  the  angle  of  convergence.  But  there  is  no 
evidence  that  Nature  did  give  the  Other-One  such  equip- 
ment as  a  pure  inheritance.  These  visual  perceptions  of 
depth  all  seem  to  be  habits. 


ADJUSTING  REFLEXES  AND  VISUAL  DEPTH  245 

Still  a  further  substitution  of  the  same  class,  a  further 
method  of  depth  perception,  is  left  to  be  discussed.  It  is 
among  the  most  important,  perhaps  in  life  the  preferably 
used,  of  the  methods  of  perceiving  depth.  This  is  the  so- 
called  "stereoscopic  vision."  It  is  again  a  substitution  for 
a  two-dimensional  space  perception.  But  it  differs  greatly 
from  all  those  already  discussed  (in  our  list  above).  In 
those  only  one  eye  was  required.  High  and  low  position 
in  the  field  of  vision  (figure  B),  for  example,  does  not  re- 
quire the  use  of  two  eyes.  It  is  perfectly  obvious  in  a  single 
eye's  image. 

The  perception  of  depth  which  is  called  stereoscopic  vis- 
ion is  based  on  the  fact  that  the  two  pictures  of  the  two 
eyes  are  not  identical.  The  existence  of  two  different  pic- 
tures being  essential,  the  use  of  both  eyes  is  then  of  course 
a  requisite.  The  two  pictures  are  not  dift'erent  in  such  a 
way  that  where  there  is  a  horse,  for  example,  in  one,  there 
might  be  a  cow  in  the  other.  The  objects,  the  visible  things, 
are  the  same.  But  in  a  lateral  direction  they  do  not  have 
exactly  the  same  places.  (Vertically,  the  locations  of  the 
objects  in  the  one  eye's  picture  do  not  differ  from  those 
in  the  other.)  The  objects,  or  details  of  the  objects,  do 
not  have  exactly  the  same  lateral  distances  from  each  other. 
And  this  fact  can  be  utilized,  as  we  shall  see,  for  perceiv- 
ing the  third  dimension  with  marvelous  accuracy. 

In  order  to  understand  stereoscopic  vision  well,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  understand  the  functional  relations  in  general  be- 
tween the  nervous  currents  coming  from  one  retina  and 
those  coming  from  the  other  retina.  We  find  there  also 
certain  problems  concerning  two-dimensional  space  percep- 
tion which  have  not  yet  been  discussed. 

Having  two  eyes  is  a  luxury  so  far  as  their  use  for  local- 
izing reflexly  is  concerned,  where   (disregarding  such  an- 


246  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

atomical  details  as  the  "blind  spot")  the  second  eye  can  do 
nothing  that  the  first  eye  could  not  do  alone.  Neverthe- 
less, the  Other-One  not  only  has  two,  but  carries  them  in 
such  a  position  that  most  objects  are  pictured  in  both  eyes 
and  objects  pictured  in  one  eye  and  not  in  the  other  are 
decidedly  a  minority  of  little  importance  on  account  of 
their  indistinctness.  In  general,  then,  we  do  not  go  far 
astray  when  we  say  that  what  is  seen  by  one  eye  is  also 
seen  by  the  other. 

Let  us  now  consider  one  of  the  consequences  of  this  ar- 
rangement. In  our  figure  the  two  circles  at  R  and  L 
represent  cross-sections  thru  the  Other-One's  eye-balls  (who 
stands  below  us,  if  you  wish,  and  whose  eyes  are  seen  from 
above  thru  a  transparent  skull).  The  median  plane,  the 
plane  which  divides  his  body  into  two  symmetrical  halves 
and  passes  thru  the  tip  of  his  nose,  is  indicated  in  the 
figure  by  the  dotted  line  lying  between  R  and  L.  The  ob- 
ject A,   for  example  an  electric  light  or  an  apple,  sends 


TWO    EYES  FIXED   AND    EXPOSED   TO   VARYING 
STIMULATIONS. 

rays  to  the  two  "pin  holes"  and  stimulates  the  retinas. 
The  Other-One  has  a  reflex  of  adjusting  the  axis  of  his 
eye  so  that  it  coincides  with  the  direction  of  the  most 
significant  one  of  the  innumerable  surrounding  stimuli.  We 
assume  that  the  axes  of  the  eyes  have  thus  adjusted  them- 
selves toward  A;   and  we  shall  regard  them  as  stationary 


CO-OPERATION  OF  THE  TWO  RETINAS  247 

in  our  following  considerations.  In  order  to  make  them 
conspicuous,  they  (AR  and  AL)  have  been  drawn  some 
distance  beyond  the  back  of  the  eye  ball.  The  object  C  also 
sends  rays  thru  the  pin  holes.  This  object,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  Other-One,  whose  eyes  we  see  in  our  figure, 
lies  on  the  right  side  of  his  median  plane.  It  stimulates 
in  each  eye  a  point  on  the  left  part  of  his  retina. 

The  reflex  response  to  the  excitation  caused  on  either 
retina  by  A  is  a  forward  movement  of  the  localizing  hand 
along  the  median  plane.  The  reflex  response  to  the  excita- 
tion caused  on  either  retina  by  C  is  a  movement  of  the  hand 
somewhat  to  the  right,  tho  mainly  forward.  All  this  is 
plain.  But  what  is  the  result  of  moving  the  light  C  to  the 
position  of  B?  Nothing  is  changed  in  the  left  eye  (we 
remember  that  we  supposed  the  eyes  to  remain  stationary) 
and  the  reflex  response  is  still  to  the  right  forward.  But 
the  right  retina  is  stimulated  by  B  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  reflex  movement  of  the  hand  is  straight  forward  in  the 
median  plane. 

We  already  know  that  of  two  simultaneous  nervous  proc- 
esses one  is  often  swallowed  up,  so  to  speak,  by  the  other. 
But  this  is  not  always  the  case.  Assume  that  this  does  not 
happen  here,  that  neither  nervous  process  suffers  a  deflec- 
tion. The  arm,  being  pulled  by  certain  muscles  somewhat 
to  the  right,  by  other  muscles  straight  forward,  will  then 
move  according  to  the  law  of  mechanics  along  the  "re- 
sultant," not  quite  straight  forward,  but  deviating  slightly 
to  the  right.  The  hand  will  then  probably  touch,  localize, 
the  object  B. 

Now  recall  what  we  said  about  substituting  one  reaction, 
for  example,  the  pronunciation  of  the  word  "one"  or  the 
word  "two,"  for  two  localizing  movements.  Apply  this  to 
the   movements  localizing  object  A.     The  right  eye  calls 


248  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

forth  a  muscular  activity  tending  to  localize  A.  The  left 
eye  calls  forth  exactly  the  same  muscular  activity  localiz- 
ing A.  When  for  these  two  identical  localizing  reactions 
a  single  speech  reaction  is  substituted,  it  naturally  is  the 
pronunciation  of  the  word  "one." 

Now  make  the  application  to  point  B.  The  right  eye, 
we  said,  calls  forth  a  muscular  activity  tending  straight 
forward  in  the  median  plane.  But  the  left  eye  calls  forth 
a  muscular  activity  tending  somewhat  toward  the  right, 
since  the  left  part  of  the  retina  is  stimulated.  When  for 
these  two  different  localizing  reactions  a  single  speech  re- 
action is  substituted,  it  is  the  pronunciation  of  the  word 
"two." 

Now  imagine  that  B  is  the  only  object  before  the  Other- 
'One  and  that,  after  having  heard  him  say  "two"  before 
witnesses,  an  evil-minded  person,  say,  the  attorney  of  the 
other  side  in  a  legal  case  where  the  Other-One  is  one  of 
the  litigating  parties,  localizes  with  his  own  arm — picks  the 
apple,  let  us  say — before  the  Other-One's  eyes  the  object 
B.  And  immediately  he  asks  the  Other-One :  "How  many 
apples  did  I  pick?"  The  Other-One  answers  "one,"  and 
the  lawyer:  "Then  please  pick  the  other  apple,  for  you 
said  a  moment  ago  that  there  were  two."  There  the  Other- 
One  stands,  shamefaced.  There  is  no  other  apple  in  sight. 
Of  course,  he  cannot  call  himself  a  liar,  especially  here,  in 
court.  Think  of  the  consequences !  And  besides,  he  has 
not  been  insincere.  So  he  replies  like  a  gentleman :  "Ex- 
cuse me.  I  was  mistaken.  I  did  not  want  to  say  it.  I 
shall  not  say  it  again.  I  ought  to  have  said  there  was 
one  apple.  In  the  future,  I  promise,  I  shall  say  in  such  a 
case,  truthfully,  that  there  is  only  one." 

But  now  the  evil  one  has  him  in  his  grip.  While  some- 
one is  momentarily  obstructing  the  Other-One's  view,  he 


CO-OPERATION  OF  THE  TWO  RETINAS  249 

hangs  up  the  apples  A  and  C,  screening  them  so  (by  screens 
not  indicated  in  the  figure,  to  keep  it  simple)  that  A  can 
not  stimulate  the  left  eye  and  C  can  not  stimulate  the  right 
eye.  "How  many  are  there?"  he  asks.  The  Other-One 
remembers  what  he  has  promised.  His  retinas  are  stim- 
ulated exactly  as  they  were  in  the  former  case  by  the  apple 
B.  He  answers  timidly  "one."  He  expects  that  this  answer 
will  work  better.  But  he  congratulates  himself  too  soon 
on  his  quick  adaptability.  He  hears  the  lawyer's  diabolical 
laughter  while  he  picks  two  apples,  A  and  C,  gives  them 
to  the  Other-One  and  asks  him  whether  he  will  accuse  him 
of  having  picked  any  apple  that  was  invisible  to  the  Other- 
One.  The  Other-One  can  not  honestly  accuse  him  of  hav- 
ing done  that.  There  the  Other-One  stands,  confounded, 
having  said  "one  apple"  and  holding  two  apples  in  his 
hand,  exposed  to  the  charge  of  being  an  habitual  liar. 

If  we  have  reported  these  facts  in  a  dramatic  form,  we 
have  done  that  in  order  to  draw  some  serious  conclusions 
from  them  in  a  later  part  of  this  book,  where  we  discuss 
hysteria  and  other  abnormalities.  Generally,  under  per- 
fectly normal  conditions  of  the  organism,  this  kind  of 
trouble  is  rather  mild.  Indeed  in  ordinary  life,  outside  of 
the  psychological  laboratory,  with  perfectly  normal  people 
no  such  trouble  as  that  reported  above  as  having  happened 
in  court  is  to  be  feared.     Why  not? 

The  Other-One  does  not  in  ordinary  life  keep  his  eyes 
as  still  as  they  were  supposed  to  be  during  the  whole  story. 
In  ordinary  life,  when  he  says  "one"  or  "two,"  his  judg- 
ment is  the  combined  result  of  innumerable  successive 
stimulations  of  his  ever  moving  eyes.  The  essential  fact 
which  we  want  to  bring  out  in  our  discussion  at  this  mo- 
ment is  not  the  possibility  of  trouble  of  a  practical  kind, 
but  is  the  following. 


250  PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

Whether  the  Other-One  appHes  to  the  objective  situation 
to  which  his  eyes  are  momentarily  exposed  the  name  "one" 
or  the  name  "two,"  does  not  depend  on  whether  the  points 
stimulated  on  the  two  retinas  are  mathematically  corre- 
sponding or  not  corresponding.  During  the  second  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  it  was  fashionable  among  physi- 
ologists and  psychologists  to  construct  geometrically  that 
peculiarly  curved,  bowl-shaped  surface,  for  any  possible 
distance  before  a  person's  nose,  of  which  every  point  would 
stimulate  the  retinas  in  mathematically  corresponding 
points.  They  called  this  surface  the  horopter.  (One  might 
translate  this  "locus  of  sights.") 

The  construction  of  the  horopter  was  undoubtedly  a 
good  mathematical  exercise,  but  its  biological  significance 
was  not  equal  to  the  amount  of  the  labor  spent  in  construct- 
ing it.  The  correlation  between  the  mathematically  just 
corresponding  or  mathematically  non-corresponding  points 
on  the  retinas,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  speech  reactions 
"one"  or  "two,"  on  the  other  hand,  is  not  absolute  (as  the 
theory  and  construction  of  the  horopter  assumes),  but  de- 
pendent on  innumerable  accidents  of  life  at  the  moment 
in  question.  The  correlation  between  correspondence  on 
the  retinas  and  the  speech  reaction  has  no  absolute  mean- 
ing, but  a  meaning  only  in  terms  of  probability. 

When  the  two  points  are  mathematically  corresponding, 
the  probability  of  the  Other-One's  speech  reaction  being 
"one"  is  very  great  and  the  probability  of  his  speech  re- 
action being  "two"  is  exceedingly  small.  In  practice  this 
means  that  to  repeated  questions  "One  or  two?"  he  is  heard 
to  answer  nearly  always  "one,"  very  rarely  if  ever  "two." 

The  less  the  two  retinal  points  correspond  mathematic- 
ally, the  greater  the  probability  of  his  answering  "two," 
while  the  probability  of  his  answering  "one"  decreases  ac- 


CO-OPERATTON  OF  THE  TWO  RETINAS  251 

cordingly.  This  means,  for  example,  that  with  a  certain 
deviation  from  mathematical  correspondence  the  Other-One 
is  found  to  answer  repeated  questions  now  by  "one."  only 
a  second  later  perhaps  by  "two,"  a  little  later  again  by 
"one,"  and  so  forth ;  maybe  as  many  times  "one"  as  "two." 
With  still  greater  mathematical  deviation,  he  answers  usu- 
ally "two"  and  but  rarely  "one."  However,  the  mathe- 
matical deviation  may  be  very  great  indeed,  and  yet  he 
may  answer  "one"  as  in  the  case  above,  where  the  answer 
"one"  was — honestly — expected  to  work  better  in  court, 
altho  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  didn't. 

Any  one  who  does  not  object  to  poetical  or  figurative 
language,  will  permit  us  to  compare  the  relation  of  the  two 
retinas  with  the  relation  of  two  persons  living  together,  say, 
husband  and  wife.  The  wife,  having  just  bought  a  new 
hat,  addresses  her  husband  with:  "Is  not  this  hat  beauti- 
ful?" The  husband  replies:  "It  is  truly  beautiful."  They 
have  but  one  opinion.  They  are  in  their  domestic  func- 
tions but  one.  They  co-operate,  do  not  compete.  But  sup- 
pose that  the  husband  replies :  "That  hat  looks  like  a  bird's 
nest."  They  have  different  opinions.  They  are  in  their 
domestic  functions  two.    They  compete,  they  are  rivals. 

So  your  retinas  sometimes  compete ;  you  then  say  "two." 
Sometimes  they  co-operate  ;  you  then  say  "one."  In  the  nerv- 
ous system  this  competition  between  two  currents  from  the 
two  eyes  is  equivalent  to  a  small  degree  of  "condensation" 
of  the  nervous  functioning;  co-operation  is  equivalent  to 
much  "condensation."  The  reaction  is  more  likely  to  be  a 
single  reaction  in  the  latter  case. 

One  must  not  think,  however,  that  there  is  never  any 
retinal  rivalry  when  the  two  points  stimulated  on  the  two 
retinas  are  mathematically  corresponding.  The  following 
experiment   will   illustrate   such  cases   without   exhausting 


252 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 


them.  The  mathematically  corresponding  points  are  here 
stimulated  in  qualitatively  different  ways. 

The  three  figures  (each  being  double)  must  be  given  to 
the  Other-One  with  the  request  to  look  at  one  half  with 
the  one  eye  and  at  the  other  half  with  the  other  eye.  And 
the  Other-One's  remarks  while  looking  during  a  few  min- 
utes must  be  carefully  noted.  Still  better  than  to  give  him 
these  little  figures  is  it  to  give  him  larger  sizes  of  them  and 
to  ask  him  to  look  at  them  thru  an  ordinary  stereoscope. 

In  such  a  case  as  that  of  the  soldier  and  the  donkey  ap- 
pearing in  the  visual  field  of  the  right  eye,  the  house  and 
the  tree  in  the  visual  field  of  the  left  eye,  there  is  perhaps 
completely  successful  rivalry,  a  fight  to  the  finish,  in  the 
sense  that  there  is  no  co-operation  based  on  a  compromise. 
But  it  should  then  rather  be  called  complete  division  of 


DIVISION   OF  LABOR'  BETWEEN   THE   TWO   EYES. 

labor  than  rivalry.  The  one  retina  says:  "Here  above  is 
the  foliage  of  a  tree."  The  other  retina,  not  receiving  any 
stimulus  to  which  a  localizing  movement  upwards  would 
be  in  order,  instead  of  denying  its  existence,  says  nothing. 
The  organism  acts  in  accordance  with  the  one  order  re- 


CO-OPERATION  OF  THE  TWO  RETINAS 


253 


ceived.  With  respect  to  the  donkey,  the  roles,  active  and 
passive,  of  the  retinas  are  exchanged;  otherwise  it  is  the 
same  case.  Competition  here  leads  to  complete  submission 
of  one  of  the  competing  parties.  Such  a  relation  between 
husband  and  wife  might  be  the  equivalent  of  perfect  do- 
mestic happiness,  but  it  would  not  be  real  co-operation.  It 
is  simply  division  of  labor. 

A  similar  illustration  would  be  the  presentation  to  one 
eye  of  one  capital  letter  of  the  alphabet  and  to  the  other 
eye  of  another  letter  so  that  the  organism  would  respond : 
"It  is  a  monogram." 

A  little  different  is  the  case  of  the  divided  squares,  half 
white,  half  black,  one  divided  horizontally,  the  other  verti- 
cally. In  two  of  the  four  quarter  squares  there  is  perfect 
co-operation.  "To  the  left  above  there  is  black,"  says  the 
husband.  "Black  as  pitch,"  confirms  the  wife.  "To  the 
right  below  there  is  white,  snow-white,"  say  husband  and 
wife  with  the   same  unanimity.      But  with  respect  to  the 


IN    PARTS    THE    RETINAS    ARE    CO-OPERATING, 
PARTS  THEY   ARE   WRESTLING. 


IN    OTHER 


Other  two  subdivisions  there  is  rivalry.  "There  is  black," 
says  the  husband.  "There  is  white,"  retorts  the  wife.  "No, 
there  is  black."  the  husband  again ;  and  so  forth.  And  the 
household,  the  organism,  carries  out  now  the  one  order, 


254  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

immediately  afterwards  the  reverse,  then  again  the  first. 
That  is,  the  Other-One,  whose  retinas  are  exposed,  calls 
out :  "It  is  black.  No ;  no  longer.  A  white  cloud  is  pass- 
ing over  it.  It  is  white  now.  But  no,  a  black  cloud  is 
passing  over  it.  It  is  black  again."  And  all  this  within  the 
brief  time  of  a  few  seconds.  The  two  retinas  are  wrestling, 
so  to  speak.  For  a  moment  one  has  the  upper  hand,  a 
little  later  the  other. 

Sometimes,  however,  this  rivalry  leads,  sooner  or  later, 
to  a  curious  kind  of  co-operation  based  on  compromise, 
"All  right,"  says  the  wife,  "if  you  insist,  I  shall  call  it  black; 
but  it  is  a  rather  luminous  black."  And  the  husband,  with 
similar  generosity :  "All  right,  if  you  insist,  I  shall  call  it 
white ;  but  it  is  a  rather  obscure  white."  And  the  house- 
hold, the  organism  (that  is,  the  Other-One  whose  retinas 
are  exposed,)  calls  out:  "It  seems  to  be  only  one,  a  lumi- 
nously-blackish-obscurely-whitish thing."  Never  mind  the 
lack  of  logic  in  the  combination  of  the  epithets.  Real  life 
is  not  always  logical.  The  Other-One  might,  of  course,  say 
that  it  is  like  a  piece  of  black  glass  seen  in  the  light  of  the 
day  with  the  usual  reflections  of  bright  things  surrounding 
him. 

Similar  and  yet  more  different  again  is  the  retinal  ri- 
valry or  co-operation  when  we  use  colors.  Suppose  you 
fill  the  Other-One's  visual  field  of  the  left  eye  with  blue, 
except  that  as  an  aid  in  the  performance  of  the  experi- 
ment there  is  a  small  black  dot  in  the  center  of  the  field. 
The  visual  field  to  which  the  right  eye  is  exposed  has  the 
same  black  dot  in  the  center,  but  the  right  half  of  this  field 
is  green  and  the  left  half  is  red.  The  two  retinas  in  this 
case  co-operate  rather  readily  with  respect  to  the  right  half 
of  the  field.  There  is  here  much  condensation  of  the  nerv- 
ous functioning  for  some  reason  which  we  shall  mention 


CO-OPEEATION  OF  THE  TWO  EETINAS 


255 


presently  and  understand  well  in  a  later  chapter.  The  right 
half  is  pronounced  to  be  a  greenish-blue  or  a  bluish-green. 
With  respect  to  the  left  half  of  the  field,  however,  the 


NERVOUS    CONDENSATION    DEPENDING    ON 
SIMILARITY. 

retinas  usually  function  together  in  about  the  same  man- 
ner as  they  did  with  respect  to  white  and  black  in  the 
former  case,  altho  with  a  little  more  inclination  toward  a 
compromise.  "It  is  blue,"  says  the  organism.  "No,  it  is 
no  longer  blue.  A  red  cloud  has  just  passed  over  it ;  it  is 
red.  But  a  blue  cloud  is  again  passing  over  it."  And  so 
forth  the  Other-One's  remarks.  There  is  but  little  conden- 
sation, then,  of  the  nervous  functioning.  Competition 
reigns,  and  deflection  now  in  this,  now  in  that  direction. 

Sometimes,  however,  that  is,  during  certain  moments 
alternating  with  those  just  described,  the  two  retinas  co- 
operate with  red  and  blue  too,  compromise  as  they  do  with 
green  and  blue.  The  Other-One  then  pronounces  the  thing 
a  reddish-blue,  a  violet,  or  a  bluish-red,  a  purple.  There 
is  then  an  increased  condensation  of  the  nervous  function- 
ing. The  fact  that  rivalry  is  less  probable,  less  frequent, 
that  condensation  is  more  probable,  between  the  green  and 
the  blue  excitations  than  between  the  red  and  the  blue  ex- 
citations, is  apparently  due  to  the  fact  that  the  excitations 
green  and  blue,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chapter,  are  in  a 
lesser  degree  dissimilar  than  the  excitations  red  and  blue. 


256 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 


After  these  discussions  of  the  functional  relations  of  the 
nervous  currents  having  their  origins  in  the  two  retinas, 
we  can  quite  readily  understand  that  method  of  depth  per- 
ception which  customarily  goes  under  the  name  of  stereo- 
scopic vision ;  and  we  therefore  return  to  it  now.  We 
said  in  our  beginning  of  its  explanation  that  the  reaction 
was  in  this  case  substituted  for  a  perception  of  the  differ- 
ence of  the  place,  of  one  thing  laterally  from  another  thing, 
in  the  one  eye's  field  of  vision  and  in  the  other  eye's  field 
of  vision. 

The  Other-One,  following  our  request,  holds  before  his 
face  a  finger  of  his  left  hand  and  a  pencil  in  his  right  hand. 
He  holds,  for  mere  convenience's  sake,  the  pencil  about 
twice  as  far  from  his  face  as  the  finger.  And  he  holds  the 
finger  just  a  little  to  the  left  of  the  pencil,  in  order  that 
the  one  may  not  obstruct  the  view  of  the  other.  We  then 
ask  him  to  close  alternately  either  eye  (but  without  mov- 


r\ 


r\ 


L  R 

STEREOSCOPIC     VISION. 

ing  his  head)  and  to  draw  a  sketch  of  what  he  sees  with 
the  left  eye  and  what  with  the  right  eye.  In  our  figure  we 
see  this  sketch  drawn  by  him.  L  shows  what  he  saw  with 
his  left,  R  what  he  saw  with  his  right  eye.  L  and  R  are 
plainly  two  different  two-dimensional  perceptions. 

In  order  to  record  the  special  kind  of  difference  between 
the  two  perceptions,  we  request  the  Other-One  to  draw  in 
the  field  or  frame  marked  I  the  pencil  as  it  actually  ap- 
pears (at  the  finger's  side)  to  the  right  eye;  and  then  to 


STEREOSCOPIC  VISION  257 

draw  it  also  dotted  in  the  position  in  which  it  would  ap- 
pear (at  the  finger's  side)  if  this  eye's  image  were,  what 
it  is  not,  an  exact  copy  of  the  left  eye's  image.  He  draws 
figure  I  and  tells  us  that  obviously  the  pencil  has  suffered 
a  displacement.  We  ask  him  to  state  in  which  lateral  di- 
rection it  has  been  displaced.  He  replies  "To  the  right." 
We  record  the  answer. 

I.  "The  pencil  (being  farther)  is  displaced  in  the  right 
eye's  image  to  the  right." 

Now  we  request  the  Other-One  to  draw  in  the  field  II 
the  pencil  as  it  actually  appears  to  the  left  eye ;  and  then 
to  draw  it  dotted  in  the  position  in  which  it  would  appear 
if  this  eye's  image  were,  what  it  is  not,  an  exact  copy  of 
the  right  eye's  image.  He  draws  figure  II  and  tells  us  that 
obviously  the  pencil  has  suffered  a  displacement.  We  ask 
him  in  what  direction  it  has  been  displaced.  He  replies 
"To  the  left."    We  record  the  answer. 

II.  "The  pencil  (being  farther)  is  displaced  in  the  left 
eye's  image  to  the  left." 

Now  we  request  the  Other-One  to  draw  in  the  field  III 
the  finger  as  it  actually  appears  to  the  right  eye ;  and  then 
to  draw  it  dotted  in  the  position  in  which  it  would  appear 
if  this  eye's  image  were,  what  it  is  not,  an  exact  copy  of 
the  left  eye's  image.  He  draws  figure  III  and  tells  us  that 
the  finger  has  suffered  a  displacement.  We  ask  him  in 
what  direction  it  has  been  displaced.  He  replies  "To  the 
left."    We  record  his  answer. 

III.  "The  finger  (being  nearer)  is  displaced  in  the  right 
eye's  image  to  the  left." 

Now  we  request  the  Other-One  to  draw  in  the  field  IV 
the  finger  as  it  actually  appears  to  the  left  eye ;  and  then 
to  draw  it  dotted  in  the  position  in  which  it  would  appear 
if  this  eye's  image  were,  what  it  is  not,  an  exact  copy  of 


258 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 


the  right  eye's  image.  He  draws  figure  IV  and  tells  us 
that  the  finger  is  displaced.  We  ask  him  in  what  direction 
it  is  displaced.  He  replies  "To  the  right."  We  record  his 
answer. 

IV.  "The  finger  (being  nearer)  is  displaced  in  the  left 
eye's  image  to  the  right." 

Now  we  have  in  four  distinct  statements  a  complete  de- 
scription of  all  the  diflference  which  can  be  found  to  exist 
in  the  two  perceptions  due  to  the  use  of  two  eyes.  I  and 
II  combined  describe  the  perception  of  the  lateral  displace- 


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f^ 

n     A 

/^ 

f 

11 


III 


IV 


THE    LATERAL    DISPLACEMENT    FOR    A    FARTHER    AND    FOE)   A 

NEARER   OBJECT. 

ment  of  the  farther  one  of  the  two  objects.  Ill  and  IV 
combined  describe  the  perception  of  the  lateral  displace- 
ment of  the  nearer  one  of  the  two  objects.  Of  course,  the 
term  "displacement,"  we  must  never  forget,  refers  always 
to  the  place  laterally  occupied  by  one  object  in  comparison 
to  another  object.  Speaking  of  a  single  object  the  term 
would  be  meaningless. 

Experience,  repeated  innumerable  times  from  earliest  in- 
fancy, results  in  the  formation  of  a  substitution  habit.  The 
Other-One  substitutes  the  reaction  of  calling  a  thing 
"farther"  than  another,  when  that  thing,  in  the  two  dimen- 
sions of  the  field  of  vision,  might  be  called  "displaced  in 
the  right  eye's  image  to  the  right  and  in  the  left  eye's  image 
to  the  left." 

And  the  Other-One  also  substitutes  the  reaction  of  re- 
garding a  thing  as  "nearer"  than  another,  when  that  thing 


STEEEOSCOPIC  VISION"  259 

might  be  called  "displaced  in  the  right  eye's  image  to  the 
left  and  in  the  left  eye's  image  to  the  right."  These  two 
substitute  reactions,  and  nothing  further,  are  the  whole  nerv- 
ous function  which  is  entitled  in  theoretical  discussions 
"stereoscopic  vision." 

We  understand  from  our  preceding  discussions  that  this 
substitution  depends  on  the  existence  of  a  considerable  and 
sufficient  amount  of  condensation  in  the  nervous  function- 
ing. How  could  the  thing  otherwise  be  pronounced  to  be 
"one,  but  farther"  or  "one,  but  nearer?"  It  would,  when 
there  is  little  condensation  in  the  nervous  functioning,  be 
pronounced  "a  thing  in  this  place  and  a  second  thing  in 
that  different  place."  And  a  substitution  likely  to  occur 
would  then  be  the  pronunciation  "two  different  things." 

But  one  must  never  deceive  himself  by  arguing  that, 
logically,  when  for  the  pronunciation  "two"  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  judgment  of  "distance"  is  substituted,  the  form- 
er judgment  of  doubleness  is  thereby  barred.  Logic  in  this 
sense  does  not  apply  to  nervous  functions.  We  have  found 
this  before.  "Substitution"  may  easily  turn  out  only  an 
"addition"  when  we  study  the  reactions  to  given  situations. 
The  condensation  of  the  nervous  functioning  may  be  so 
strong  that  the  two  retinas  cease  to  "rival,"  that  they  "com- 
promise" and  call  the  thing  "only  one,  but  at  a  definite 
relative  distance."  This  condensation  may  yet  be  insuffi- 
ciently strong  to  imply  that  virtually  no  nervous  flux  goes 
to  the  motor  points  of  the  two  separate  reactions  "this 
place"  and  "that  different  place."  And  then  the  Other-One 
makes  us  the  illogical,  but  actual  and  frequent  enough  state- 
ment :  "This  one  pencil  seems  farther  than  the  finger,  and 
at  the  same  time  I  am  inclined  to  say  that  there  are  two 
different  pencils." 


260  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHEK-ONE 

Of  course,  this  result  is  the  more  to  be  expected — in 
other  words,  the  condensation  is  the  less  likely  to  be  strong 
— the  greater  the  displacement,  the  greater  the  mathematical 
non-correspondence  of  the  points  stimulated  in  the  two 
retinas. 

To  repeat :  double  vision  is  often  simultaneous  with 
stereoscopic  depth  perception.  Double  vision  is  not  incom- 
patible with  stereoscopic  depth  perception. 

What  has  been  said  about  the  other  perceptions  of  depth, 
should  be  repeated  about  stereoscopic  vision.  Nature  might 
have  given  the  substitute  reaction  to  each  individual  of  the 
human  race  as  an  inherited  gift.  But  there  is  little  doubt 
that  Nature  did  not  do  it,  and  that  the  Other-One  has  to 
acquire  stereoscopic  vision  as  one  habit  among  all  the  other 
habits  of  the  perception  of  the  third  dimension. 

Leaving  now  the  discussion  of  depth  perception  as  such, 
we  turn  to  a  brief  statement  about  those  space  perceptions 
which  are  illustrated  by  so-called  puzzle  pictures.  Here, — 
that  is,  in  high  class  puzzle  pictures,  not  in  the  bungled  pro- 
ductions often  published  in  Sunday  papers — one  of  two 
possible  perceptions  is  as  likely  to  occur  first  as  the  other 
perception.  But  when  one  perception  has  once  taken  pre- 
cedence over  the  other  perception,  the  latter  does  not  easily 
take  the  place  of  the  former.  This  is  natural,  since  the 
nervous  current  once  strongly  established,  more  readily  de- 
flects others,  new  ones,  starting  ones,  than  it  is  itself  de- 
flected by  these  starting  ones.  Besides,  preoccupation  plays 
its  role. 

Good  puzzles  of  this  kind  do  not  require  for  their  solu- 
tion, for  making  the  change,  any  turning  of  the  page  on 
which  the  picture  is  printed. 

Once  in  a  while  such  a  puzzle  picture  can  be  obtained 
by  photographing  an  actual  situation.     Such  a  situation  is 


PUZZLE  PICTUEES 


261 


then  quite  likely  to  cause  practical  troubles.  The  sketch  here 
shown  reproduces  in  its  essential  parts  such  a  photographed 
puzzle.  In  a  certain  village  of  northern  France  the  in- 
habitants, still  somewhat  affected  by  their  experiences  dur- 


A     "WASTED"     REACTION. 


ing  the  recent  war,  saw  an  appearance  of  the  Vipgin  Mary 
in  their  church  yard,  among  the  leafless  trees.  Show  the 
picture  of  the  church  yard  to  the  Other-One  and  ask  him 
if  he  sees  the  Virgin. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Nature  Divides  the  Spectrum  eor  the  Other-One's 
Space  Perception  at  a  Distance. 

The  retina  is  essentially  a  group  of  sensory  points  of  the 
skin  whose  sensitivity  has  been  peculiarly  differentiated. 
The  original  eye  is  a  pigmented  area  on  the  skin,  as 
shown  in  figure  I.  The  dark  pigment  absorbs  the  rays  of 
light  more  efficiently  than  the  unpigmented  skin.  During 
the  process  of  evolution  this  area  becomes  a  pit,  obviously 
for  its  better  protection,  as  shown  in  our  figure  II.  Later 
a  glassy  body  develops  from  the  skin,  as  shown  in  III, 
closes  the  opening  of  the  pit,  and  concentrates  the  light  in 
a  region  always  opposite  that  region  in  the  field  of  vision 


^■9"""'  ^"'^  y^   <^.  Sk!, 


"•w'S-v>% 


Skin 


t  U  lU 

THE   EVOLUTION    OF   THE   EYE 

from  which  the  light  emanates.  The  sensory  points  of  this 
area  are  now  very  sensitive  to  ether  waves  of  light.  Such 
waves  easily  produce  chemical  changes  in  the  sensitive  cells 
of  the  two  retinas. 

But  the  problem  with  which  Nature  finds  herself  con- 
fronted is  actually  most  complex.  The  object  to  which  the 
organism  is  to  react  may  not  be  different  from  the  others 
because  of  its  brightness,  but  on  the  contrary  because  of 
its  darkness,  its  lack  of  light.    The  Other-One  may  be  look- 

(262) 


TWO  EXCITATIONS  DUE  TO  LIGHT  INTENSITY        263 

ing  for  the  blackboard  in  the  schoolroom  whose  walls  are 
painted  white.  Or  the  cave  in  which  he  usually  finds  shel- 
ter may — and  surely  does  when  seen  from  a  distance — 
differ  from  the  bluff  in  which  it  is  located  by  its  being  a 
dark  spot  amidst  brighter  surroundings. 

Nature,  therefore,  could  not  be  satisfied  with  differentiat- 
ing the  sensitive  cells  in  the  retina  merely  so  that  they  be- 
come sensitive  to  light.  They  must  be  sensitive  to  dark- 
ness too.  A  very  particular  (very  complex  and  far  from 
being  exactly  known,  chemically  understood)  substance  was 
developed  by  Nature  in  the  sensitive  cells.  Following  the 
example  of  others  we  call  this  chemical  substance  the  Black- 
White  substance.  Its  chief  characteristic  does  not  really 
consist  in  the  fact  that  it  is  changed  by  light,  but  rather  in 
the  following  more  complicated  fact. 

When  neighboring  cells  of  a  retina  are  subject  to  differ- 
ing intensity  of  illumination,  different  chemical  processes 
are  set  up,  which  are  in  some  respect  opposite.  The  re- 
sulting excitations,  that  is,  are  not  merely  differing  in 
strength.  Thus  the  very  darkness  of  an  object  produces 
a  very  definite  and  really  positive  nervous  process  which 
passes  along  nervous  conductors  like  any  other  nervous 
flux,  and.  produces  motor  effects  just  as  any  other. 

But  why  did  we  say  that  these  positive  nervous  processes 
are  in  some  respect  opposite?  What  kind  of  opposition,  not 
referring  to  the  strength  of  each  process,  is  this  ? 

One  can  get  an  idea  of  the  nature  of  this  opposition  by 
looking  at  the  narrow  moon  sickle  just  before  or  just  after 
the  new  moon.  The  large  part  of  the  moon  which  does 
not,  like  the  sickle,  receive  the  sun's  rays,  is  illuminated 
by  the  "full  earth"  and  should  therefore  in  its  totality  ap- 
pear brighter  than  the  dark  sky.  But  when  you  ask  the 
Other-One  about  this,  he  calls  only  the  regions  at  the  cir- 


264  PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE    OTHEE-ONE 

cumference  of  the  moon  circle,  bordering  the  dark  sky,  con- 
spicuously brighter  than  the  sky.  The  regions  marginal  to 
the  sickle  he  calls  even  conspicuously  darker  than  the  sky. 

We  see  thus  that  the  intensities  of  the  excitation  Bright 
and  of  the  excitation  Dark  are  to  a  large  extent  independent 
of  the  absolute  strength  of  the  stimulating  light  and  the 
stimulating  lack  of  light.  The  strength  of  each  excitation 
depends  largely,  if  the  other  excitation  occurs  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, on  the  strength  of  that  other  excitation.  We  can 
say  that  there  is  observable,  in  adjacent  regions  of  the 
retina,  a  phenomenon  of  contrast.  And  in  this  sense  we 
can  say  that  the  two  excitations  in  question,  the  one  re- 
sulting from  the  stimulus  light,  the  other  from  the  stimulus 
lack  of,  or  weakness  of,  light,  are  opposite  processes. 

Into  the  details  of  the  theories  concerning  this  rather 
complex  and  far  from  perfectly  understood  pair  of  excita- 
tions we  cannot  enter  in  this  elementary  book.  It  must 
suffice  to  state  that  there  is  considerable  evidence  to  the  ef- 
fect that  the  excitation  White  and  the  excitation  Black  are 
chemically  related  in  such  a  manner  that  they  may  be  re- 
garded as  parts,  constituents,  of  one  chemical  substance, 
which  may  be  called  the  Black-White  substance. 

Let  us  restate  then  what  we  said  before :  Nature  had  to 
make  a  provision  to  the  effect  that  (1)  the  presence  or 
relative  strength  of  a  light  stimulus  and  also  (2)  the  ab- 
sence or  relative  weakness  of  a  light  stimulus  (when  sur- 
rounded on  the  retina  by  stronger  light)  could  each  call 
forth  a  qualitatively  distinct  excitation  often  called  "proc- 
ess." There  are  then  (thus  far)  two  visual  processes. 
And  Nature  provided  the  animal  race  with  one  substance 
in  the  retina.  Within  this  substance  the  Black  process  and 
the  White  process  may  co-exist,  and  may  co-exist  in  greatly 
varying  ratios  of  the  intensities  of  each.     To  these  ratios 


THE   BLACK-WHITE   SUBSTANCE  265 

the  Other-One  answers  with  "dark  gray,  medmm  gray,  or 
light  gray."  The  substance  may  conveniently  be  called  the 
Black-White  substance.  But  Gray  substance  would  also 
serve  as  a  convenient  name. 

The  visual  substance  just  mentioned  enables  animals  to 
localize  reflexly  a  darker  object  on  a  lighter  background  or 
a  lighter  object  on  a  darker  background.  But  think  now 
of  a  dark  yellowish  or  reddish  apple  hanging  on  a  tree  with 
the  usual  dark  greenish-bluish  foliage.  It  might  easily  hap- 
pen that  the  animal's,  or  the  Other-One's,  sensory  points 
on  the  retina  are  then  illuminated  by  the  apple  neither  more 
nor  less  strongly  than  those  other  sensory  points  on  the 
retina  which  are  illuminated  by  the  surrounding  foliage.  The 
ratio  of  the  Black  process  and  the  White  process  would 
be  uniform  all  over.  There  would  then  be  no  possibility  of 
localizing  the  apple,  of  getting  it. 

But  the  light  rays  thrown  back  from  the  apple,  altho  not 
differing  in  intensity,  may,  and  usually  do,  differ  from  those 
thrown  back  from  the  foliage.  They  consist  of  ether  waves 
of  different  frequency,  say,  of  lesser  frequency.  It  is  easily 
understood,  therefore,  why  Nature  furnished  the  animal 
race  a  second  visual  substance,  in  which  again  two  differ- 
ent excitations  could  be  called  forth,  but  in  this  case  differ- 
ing according  as  the  frequency  of  the  ether  waves  was  great 
or  little.  But  where,  then,  is  the  division  line  between  low 
frequency  and  high  frequency  in  this  respect? 

When  we  speak  of  the  totality  of  all  those  ether  waves 
which  are  capable  of  exciting  the  retina,  we  speak  of  the 
"spectrum."  The  spectrum  is  an  artificially  produced  array 
(usually,  but  not  exclusively,  produced  by  letting  a  ray  of 
light  pass  thru  a  prism)  of  all  these  ether  waves,  or  kinds 
of  light.  The  light  possessing  the  greatest  frequency  of 
waves  we  throw  on  one  end,  that  of  the  least  frequency  on 
the  other  end  of  the  array. 


266 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 


Nature  could  have  made  the  second  visual  substance 
similar  to  the  first  in  this  respect  that  the  two  excitations, 
or  processes,  could  co-exist  in  the  same  sensory  cell,  and 
the  ratio  of  their  intensities  would  differ  according  to  the 
frequency  of  the  ether  waves,  as  according  to  the  intensity 
of  the  ether  waves  it  differed  in  the  first  visual  substance. 
We  should  have  found,  there,  much  of  the  one  excitation 
and  little  of  the  other  at  one  end  of  the  spectrum,  much  of 
the  other  and  little  of  the  one  excitation  at  the  other  end 
of  the  spectrum,  and  about  equal  amounts  of  each  in  the 
middle.  That  would  have  served  the  localization  of  the 
apple  in  the  above  case  perfectly.  But  Nature  did  not  do 
anything  of  the  kind  with  this  second  substance,  but  de- 
cided to  confine  one  excitation  to  one  side  of  the  spectrum, 
the  other  to  the  other  side,  and  to  deny  both  to  the  place 
between  them,  near  the  division  point. 

Now,  the  frequencies  of  the  ether  waves  in  the  spectrum 
do  not  spontaneously  fall  into  two  definite  divisions.  The 
change  from  greater  frequencies  to  lesser  frequencies  is  by 
infinitesimal,  not  by  finite  steps.     Nature  therefore  had  to 


[ Scarlet-Orange- Yellow-Olive-GTcen  Peacock-Blue- Violet- Purple 

Spectrum 

Named  Yellow 

Named  Blue 

Two  Excitations 

Named  Red  or  Yellow 

Named  Green  or  Blue 

,     II 

Two  Excitations 
draw  the  line  between  the  two  divisions  of  great  and  little 
frequency    rather   arbitrarily  to   suit   her   ideas   about   this 
second  visual  substance.     And  Nature  experimented,  so  to 
speak,  before  finally  deciding  where  to  draw  the  dividing 


NATURE  EXPERIMENTS  WITH  DIVIDING  THE  SPECTRUM    267 

line ;    she  tried  drawing  it  here  and  drawing  it  there,  as 
we  shall  see  presently. 

Above,  the  upper  band,  marked  spectrum,  represents  the 
array  of  wave  frequencies.  If  instead  of  writing  the  fre- 
quency numbers  per  second  we  have  written  familiar  color 
names,  this  has  been  done  only  because  the  color  names  ap- 
peal more  to  the  average  person's  fancy.  These  color  names 
really  serve  here  as  nothing  but  frequency  numbers,  the 
lowest  on  the  left,  the  highest  on  the  right  end  of  the  band. 
Below  this  band  there  are  two  other  bands  marked  on  the 
right  side  I  and  II  and  each  entitled  "Two  Excitations." 
These  represent  those  two  trials  of  Nature  which  we  have 
evidence  she  made.  One  of  them  (II)  she  abandoned  almost 
completely,  leaving  only  the  traces  told  further  below. 

In  I  she  drew  the  dividing  line  at  the  point  Green.  The 
ether  waves  to  the  right  of  this  dividing  line  had  to  pro- 
duce the  one  of  the  two  excitations  in  question,  first  the 
more  strongly  (as  indicated  by  the  sloping  line)  the  farther 
we  pass  to  the  right  from  the  dividing  line,  then  again  more 
and  more  weakly  until  at  the  end  of  the  spectrum  the  in- 
tensity of  this  excitation  fades  away.  On  the  left  side  we 
have  the  other  excitation,  also  possessing  a  maximum  be- 
tween two  minima,  more  exactly  between  two  zeros.  The 
ether  waves  of  the  frequency  represented  by  the  dividing 
line  do  not  call  forth  either  of  the  two  excitations. 

Let  us  here  indulge  in  a  little  fable.  We  have  seen  previ- 
ously that  the  original  purpose  of  any  two  differing  excita- 
tions must  have  been  the  advantage  of  localizing  objects.  But 
at  once  another  advantage  offers  itself,  resulting  from  the 
existence  of  more  than  one  excitation.  Nature  can  now 
make  an  animal  react  to  one  of  these  excitations  by  one 
reflex  movement  and  to  the  other  by  an  entirely  different 
reflex  movement, — to  give  two  among  thousands  of  pos- 
sible examples,  to  the  one  by  opening  the  mouth,  to  the 
other  by  closing  the  mouth,  or  to  the  one  by  a  positive 


268  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

localization,  to  the  other  by  a  negative  locaHzation.  Sup- 
pose some  of  the  Other-One's  ancestors  at  a  remote  stage 
of  evolution,  long  before  the  existence  of  man,  were  able 
to  speak,  as  in  the  fables,  and  were  able  even  to  foresee 
what  names  he  nowadays  would  give  to  the  different  parts 
of  the  spectrum,  and  were  given  the  task  of  choosing  their 
own  color  names  in  such  a  way  that  they  would  suit  best 
their  offspring's  modern  color  names.  What  would  they 
do? 

We  assume  that  they  possessed  only  the  excitations  thus 
far  mentioned  and  not  all  of  ours.  They  would  know  then 
that  the  Other-One  would  most  frequently  react  to  one  of 
these  excitations  (in  the  case  I)  by  saying  "yellowish-red" 
(scarlet)  or  "reddish-yellow"  (orange)  or  "yellow"  or 
"yellow-green"  or,  rarely,  "green."  That  is,  nearly  always 
by  using  Yellow.  They  would  naturally  choose  the  name 
"yellow."  They  would  further  know  that  the  Other-One 
would,  at  this  later  period  of  history,  most  frequently  re- 
act to  the  second  of  the  two  excitations  last  mentioned  by 
saying  "faint  bluish-red"  (purple)  or  "reddish-blue"  (vio- 
let) or  "blue"  or  "blue-green"  (peacock)  or,  rarely, 
"green."  That  is,  nearly  always  by  using  Blue.  They 
would  naturally  choose  the  name  "blue." 

In  the  sense  which  we  have  just  illustrated  by  a  some- 
what fanciful  story  we  could  say  therefore  that  animals 
at  a  very  early  time  had  only  the  "blue"  and  the  "yellow" 
color  vision,  that  they  did  not  possess  the  Other-One's  four- 
fold color  vision  (blue,  yellow,  green,  red)  about  which 
vft  shall  have  to  say  a  little  more  in  the  next  chapter. 

But  Nature  made  at  least  one  other  experiment  with 
dividing  the  spectrum.  The  lower  band,  marked  II,  shows 
where  the  dividing  line  was  located  in  this  attempt.  The 
Other-One's  remote  ancestors  with  those  fabulous  abilities 
of  speech  and  foresight  which  we  attributed  to  them  would 


SOME  COLOE-BLINDNESS  269 

have  had  to  make  a  different  choice,  a  less  simple  choice 
of  names.  The  dividing  Hne  is  here  located  in  the  part  of 
the  spectrum  which  their  offspring  now  calls  Olive.  On 
the  left  he  uses  the  names  "yellowish-red,"  "reddish-yel- 
low," "yellow"  and  "greenish-yellow,"  that  is,  always  Yel- 
low but  very  frequently  also  the  term  Red.  On  the  right 
he  uses  the  names  "faint  bluish-red,"  "reddish-blue,"  "blue," 
"blue-green,"  "green"  and  "yellowish-green,"  that  is,  very 
frequently  either  of  the  terms  Green  and  Blue.  Those  an- 
cestors therefore  would  probably  have  chosen  to  respond  to 
the  ether  waves  on  the  left  side  by  calling  them  indis- 
criminately either  red  or  yellow,  and  to  those  on  the  right 
side  by  calling  them  indiscriminately  either  green  or  blue, 
using  for  themselves  the  former  two  as  synonyms  and  the 
latter  two  as  synonyms. 

The  Other-One,  transported  back  in  history  to  that  time, 
would  have  been  astonished  at  this  particular  lack  of  dis- 
crimination and  would  have  reported  it  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend  by  writing  something  like  this:  "Those  ancestors 
of  mine  do  not  distinguish  between  red  and  yellow  on  the 
one  hand,  and  do  not  distinguish  between  green  and  blue 
on  the  other.  When  one  of  them  says  that  straw  is  yellow 
and  the  other  says  it  is  red,  the  first  does  not  retort,  but 
acts  as  if  red  and  yellow  were  synonyms.  And  when  a 
third  person  who  just  pricked  his  finger  shows  a  drop  of 
blood  and  exclaims :  'This  looks  like  your  straw.'  they 
treat  him  as  if  he  were  a  perfectly  sane  person.  With  re- 
spect to  the  words  green  and  blue,  and  with  respect  to 
green  and  blue  things,  they  act  in  the  same  queer  manner." 

All  that  we  have  said  about  the  Other-One's  remarkable 
ancestors  changes  from  fable  into  reality  as  soon  as  we 
look  around  and  find  that  some  of  these  ancestors  are  liv- 
ing with  us  today.     We  call  them  color-blind.     They  de- 


270  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

serve  the  name  because  in  certain  situations  they  act  as  if 
they  were  bHnd ;  for  example,  some  of  them  may  be  as 
unable  to  localize  by  a  reflex  movement  a  certain  red  apple 
on  a  certain  green  tree  as  a  blind  person  is  unable  to  do 
that.  We  mean  by  color-blindness,  physiologically,  that  the 
person  in  question  has  only  the  two  visual  substances  thus 
far  discussed,  the  Black-White  substance  whose  two  ex- 
citations depend  on  varying  degrees  of  light  intensity,  and 
the  second  visual  substance,  a  "color"  or  "chroma"  sub- 
stance, whose  two  excitations  depend  on  the  range  of  the 
vibration  frequencies  of  the  light.  A  color-blind  person  has 
an  incomplete  color  sense.  The  Other-One's  complete 
color  sense,  as  we  shall  later  see,  presupposes  a  third  visual 
substance  with  two  further  excitations  within  it. 

When  we  said  above  that  we  had  evidence  that  Nature 
made  at  least  two  trials  of  finding  a  suitable  dividing  line 
for  the  two  excitations  in  the  spectrum,  we  had  in  mind, 
not  exclusively,  but  chiefly,  the  fact  that  these  two  types  of 
color-blind  persons  exist ;  one  type  to  whom  all  parts  of 
the  spectrum  to  the  left  of  what  we  call  Green  are  alike, 
but  different  from  those  on  the  right ;  another  type  to  whom 
all  parts  to  the  left  of  Olive  are  alike,  and  all  to  the  right  of 
Olive  are  also  alike,  but  different  from  those  on  the  left. 

The  latter  type,  fully  established,  is  very  rare ;  the  au- 
thor of  this,  however,  had  the  good  fortune  of  having  a 
perfect  representative  of  this  type  under  his  own  observa- 
tion. But  a  very  common  relic  of  this  condition  still  exists, 
— in  every  normal  human  being.  It  is  a  more  important 
evidence  of  Nature's  trial  than  a  few  rare  cases  of  color- 
blindness. Ask  the  Other-One  whether  Red  and  Yellow,  in 
spite  of  their  dissimilarity,  when  compared  with  Green  or 
Blue,  do  not  seem  to  belong  together,  to  be  somewhat  simi- 
lar,— and  the  answer  will  be  in  the  affirmative.     And  like- 


ORDINARY   COLOR-BLINDNESS  271 

wise  Blue  and  Green,  in  spite  of  their  dissimilarity,  when 
compared  with  Red  and  Yellow,  seem  to  have  something 
in  common,  seem  to  be  similar.  A  third  fact  belonging 
here  is  the  habit  of  the  artists  of  putting  the  former  into 
one  class  and  calling  them  warm  colors,  the  latter  into  an- 
other class  and  calling  them  cold  colors.  This  habit  brings 
out  the  same  distinction. 

Much  more  common  is  the  other  type  of  color-blindness 
(in  our  fable  mentioned  first)  which  is  represented  by 
those  to  whom  Scarlet,  Orange,  Yellow,  and  Olive  are 
virtually  meaningless  distinctions,  to  whom  it  means  nothing 
at  all  when  the  first  autumn  frost,  leaving  only  a  part  of 
the  foliage  green,  changes  the  larger  part  of  the  foliage  in 
park  and  forest  to  yellow,  orange,  and  even  to  a  fiery  red. 
Among  a  hundred  men  we  are  quite  likely  to  find  one  of 
this  kind.  He  does  not  object  if  you  call  all  the  autumn 
foliage  simply  yellow.  We  said  intentionally  "men,"  for 
we  rarely  find  color-blind  women.  This  color-blindness 
is  a  biological  character  which  is  sex-linked  in  a  remark- 
able way.  It  is  dominant  (that  is,  observable)  usually 
only  in  men,  recessive  (that  is,  not  apparent)  in  women. 
And  yet  it  is  inherited,  not  thru  a  man  (his  father),  but 
thru  a  woman  (his  mother).  If  a  boy  is  color-blind,  we 
usually  find  that  neither  his  mother  nor  his  father  is  color- 
blind, but  that  his  mother's  father  is  color-blind. 

If  a  girl  is  color-blind,  we  usually  find  that  her  father 
and  also  her  mother's  father  are  color-blind.  We  under- 
stand thus  why  a  girl  is  rarely  color-blind.  That  depends 
on  a  rare  case  of  ancestral  mating. 

We  saw  above  (speaking  of  warm  and  cold  colors)  that 
the  other  type  of  color-blindness  is  in  a  mild  sense  a  per- 
sonal experience  to  every  normal  person.  Even  less  for- 
eign to  everyone  is  this  type.     The  normal  retina  may  be 


272  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

regarded  as  consisting  of  three  concentric  areas,  a  central 
disk,  an  intermediate  zone  and  a  peripheral  zone.  In  the 
intermediate  zone  everyone  has  a  colorblindness  of  this 
type,  that  is,  all  colors  of  the  spectrum  to  the  left  of  the 
point  Green  look  alike,  yellow,  and  all  those  to  the  right 
look  alike,  look  blue.  (Nothing  in  the  spectrum  ever  looks 
here  either  greenish  or  reddish.)  In  the  peripheral  zone 
everything  looks  perfectly  colorless,  resembling  an  ordinary 
photograph  or  so-called  half-tone  print,  some  parts  differ- 
ing from  others  merely  in  being  brighter  or  darker.  In 
this  peripheral  zone  the  retina  has  only  the  Black-White 
substance.  In  the  intermediate  zone  the  retina  has  the 
Black-White  and  also  the  Blue-Yellow  substance. 

Only  in  the  central  disk  has  even  the  most  normal  in- 
dividual his  complete  color  sense,  which  presupposes  a  third 
visual  substance.  What  the  properties  are  of  this  third 
visual  substance,  we  shall  tell  in  the  next  chapter. 

We  owe  to  the  German  physiologist  Hering  the  now  gen- 
erally accepted  suggestion  that  the  Blue  excitation  and  the 
Yellow  excitation  are,  not  only  different,  but  antagonistic 
in  the  sense  that  they  cannot  co-exist  in  the  same  sensitive 
cell.  (We  remember  that  the  Black  process  and  the  White 
process  can  co-exist.)  No  uniformly  colored  thing  is  to 
be  found  in  nature  which  the  Other-One  calls  yellowish 
and  bluish.  Either  one,  or  the  other,  or  neither.  Never 
both.  If  we  mix  artificially  on  a  color-wheel  a  yellow  and 
a  blue  disk  (making  sure  that  we  do  not  choose  a  greenish- 
blue),  we  can  change  the  proportions  of  the  sectors  so 
that  the  result  is  called  bluish,  or  yellowish,  or  neither,  but 
not  so  that  the  result  is  called  bluish-yellowish. 

Hering  suggested  that  the  two  excitations  making  up 
this  pair  be  called  assimilation  and  dissimilation.  Other 
terms,  also  frequently  used  and  perhaps  even  more  use- 


THE   YELLOW-BLUE    SUBSTANCE  273 

ful,  are  recomposition  and  decomposition  within  the  Blue- 
Yellow  substance.  When  two  forces  act  on  a  chemical  sub- 
stance, one  tending  to  decompose  and  the  other  to  recom- 
pose,  and  these  forces  are  equally  strong,  nothing,  obvi- 
ously, would  happen  in  that  substance.  So  we  understand 
why  blue  and  yellow  on  the  color-wheel  cancel  each  other. 

Even  with  a  minimum  of  chemical  knowledge  one  can 
make  this  clear  to  himself.  Suppose  you  pour  together,  in 
liquid  form,  water  and  its  two  components,  hydrogen  and 
oxygen.  Now  put  a  good  stopper  on  your  bottle  and  do 
not  let  anything  either  get  out  or  get  in.  Certain  influences, 
however,  can  act  on  the  contents  of  the  bottle.  Heat,  for 
example,  would  favor  composition.  An  electric  current 
would  cause  decomposition.  But  both  influences  ("stimuli") 
acting  together  and  with  equal  strength  on  this  mixture 
(the  Blue-Yellow  substance,  let  us  say)  of  a  compound  and 
its  components,  could  in  the  bottle  (the  sensitive  cell)  in- 
crease neither  the  compound  at  the  expense  of  its  com- 
ponents (the  process  of  recomposition)  nor  the  compo- 
nents at  the  expense  of  the  compound  (the  process  of  de- 
composition). Recomposition  and  decomposition  are  an- 
tagonistic. And  thus  the  Blue  excitation  and  the  Yellow 
excitation  are  antagonistic. 

Neither  Hering  nor  anyone  else  has  suggested  whether 
the  Blue  excitation  should  be  identified  with  the  process  of 
decomposition  or  with  the  process  of  recomposition ;  and 
the  Yellow  excitation  accordingly.  That  can  be  assumed 
arbitrarily  either  the  one  or  the  other  way. 

The  greatest  value  of  Hering's  theory  of  antagonistic 
chemical  processes  in  the  Blue-Yellow  substance  consists 
in  permitting  us  to  foretell  that  the  Other-One  will  react 
in  certain  ways  to  certain  situations,  not  yet  described,  and 
in  finding  that  he  actually  does  so  react.     These  situations 


274  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

we  shall  now  describe  under  the  names  of  (1)  general 
adaptation,  (2)  successive  induction,  and  (3)  simultaneous 
induction. 

Suppose  we  stimulate  any  definite  group  of  the  Other- 
One's  retinal  sensory  cells  in  the  same,  unchanged,  man- 
ner for  five  minutes  or  longer.  For  example,  we  ask  him 
to  keep  his  head  and  eyes  perfectly  still  and  then  put  before 
him  on  his  writing  desk  a  large  piece  of  yellow  paper,  or 
we  make  him  look  steadily  at  a  wall  painted  yellow.  Sup- 
pose the  retinal  cells  on  which  the  yellow  stimulus  acts 
suffer  the  excitation  which  consists  in  decomposition  ol 
the  Blue-Yellow  substance.  (Recomposition,  then,  is  as- 
sumed to  result  whenever  the  stimulus  is  blue.) 

Now,  since  the  yellow  stimulus  remains  unchanged,  and 
since  (we  remember  that  the  "bottle"  is  securely  stoppered) 
the  group  of  retinal  cells  has  no  more  succor  than  a  be- 
sieged city,  the  decomposition  can  not  go  on  eternally.  After 
a  while  it  must  cease,  simply  because  there  is  no  "com- 
pound" left  to  be  decomposed.  But,  if  you  were  the 
Creator,  would  you  not  regard  this  condition  of  the  Other- 
One  as  a  highly  undesirable  predicament?  Yet  it  is  un- 
avoidable unless  everything  so  far  agreed  on  is  changed 
entirely.  There  will  inevitably  come  a  time — no  matter, 
whether  in  five,  ten,  or  more  minutes — when  the  Other-One 
no  longer  has,  in  that  part  of  his  field  of  vision,  that  ex- 
citation (the  Yellow  process)  to  react  to.  There  will  be  a 
time  when  he  tells  us:  "That  paper  (or  wall)  is  no  longer 
yellow." 

But  the  least  you  would  want  to  do  for  him,  if  you  had 
the  Creator's  power,  would  be  to  put  off  that  predicament 
as  long  as  possible,  just  as  the  commander  of  a  besieged 
city,  or  a  farmer  entirely  snowed  in,  would  put  off  the 
moment   of   surrendering  to  the   enemy,   or  to   starvation. 


EECOMPOSITION  AND  DECOMPOSITION  275 

The  usual  method  is  rationing  of  the  supply.  And  so  the 
eye  is  made  in  such  a  manner  that  it  will  give  up  at  a 
steadily  diminishing  rate  the  recomposed  material  to  the 
stimulus  for  being  decomposed.  The  eye,  we  may  say, 
spontaneously  resists  more  and  more  the  process  of  decom- 
position and  thereby  delays  its  complete  cessation. 

The  Other-One,  accordingly,  long  before  he  tells  us  that 
the  paper  has  ceased  to  be  yellow,  is  found  to  remark  again 
and  again  that  its  yellowishness  has  become  weaker  and 
weaker  and  weaker.  Of  course,  the  experiment  with  blue 
would  have  yielded  the  corresponding  result. 

What  we  have  just  described,  deserves  to  be  called,  and 
is  called,  a  "general  adaptation"  to  the  exigencies  of  a  situa- 
tion. Why  it  is  called  "adaptation,"  is  immediately  clear. 
It  is  called  "general"  merely  because  one  of  the  other  two 
phenomena  to  be  described,  the  one  called  "simultaneous 
induction,"  is  sometimes  also  called  "adaptation"  and  then, 
for  the  sake  of  distinction,  "local"  adaptation. 

Suppose  now,  our  above  experiment  being  finished,  we 
permit  the  Other-One  to  use  his  eyes  freely.  The  region 
where  all  recomposed  material  of  the  Blue-Yellow  sub- 
stance has  been  changed  into  decomposed  material  could 
then  not  function  normally.  A  perfectly  normal  function 
does  indeed  presuppose  a  perfect  balance  between  the  avail- 
able quantity  of  the  recomposed  and  the  decomposed  ma- 
terial. But  when  of  the  one  kind  there  is  absolutely  nothing, 
the  condition  of  the  retina  is  extremely  abnormal.  How 
can  it  most  quickly  be  made  normal  again  ? 

The  general  supply  store,  so  to  speak,  of  any  part  of 
the  body  is  the  blood.  For  example,  if  a  bone  is  broken 
and  bone  building  material  is  needed,  it  can  be,  and  is,  ob- 
tained from  the  blood.  But  needed  material  can  be  ob- 
tained from  the  blood  only  slowly.     We  know  that  it  takes 


276  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE   OTHER-ONE 

more  than  days — weeks  and  even  months — to  heal  a  wound 
or  a  broken  bone.  It  might  take  hours  or  days  to  replenish 
the  sensory  cells.  Now  think  of  the  farmer  snowed  in.  If 
it  takes  too  long  to  get  a  chemical  substance,  say  soap, 
from  the  store  in  the  town,  and  he  has  grease  and  wood 
ashes,  he  quickly  makes  the  soap  himself.  And  the  sensi- 
tive cells  have  plenty  of  the  raw  material  from  which  the 
compound  needed  can  be  made.  The  raw  material  in  this 
case  is  the  decomposed  material.  And  there  is  enough  of 
it  in  the  cells.  Indeed  the  very  complaint  is  that  there  is 
too  much  of  it. 

So  Nature,  in  order  to  solve  the  problem,  should  have 
enabled  the  sensitive  cells  to  restore  spontaneously  the  bal- 
ance between  the  quantity  of  the  decomposed  and  the  re- 
composed  material.  And  Nature  has  enabled  them.  And 
at  once,  therefore,  when  the  yellow  stimulus  is  removed, 
the  eye  spontaneously  sets  up  the  antagonistic  process.  But 
the  antagonistic  process,  recomposition,  is  the  Blue  excita- 
tion. To  it  the  Other-One  can  hardly  help  responding  in 
the  normal  way.  So  he  tells  us :  "Whatever  patch  in  the 
room  (other  than  that  yellow  patch)  I  now  look  at,  on  the 
ceiling,  the  floor,  my  arm  (and  where  not!),  it  is  blue." 

This  phenomenon  is  called  successive  induction.  The 
term  "induction"  was  borrowed  by  Hering  from  physics, 
where  we  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  electrical  induction. 
And  it  is  called  "successive"  naturally  because  the  Other- 
One's  remark  that  the  patch  in  whose  direction  he  looks 
is  blue  succeeds  his  remark  that  the  patch  in  whose  direction 
he  formerly  looked  was  yellow.  Of  course,  if  the  first 
color  name  had  been  blue,  the  second  would  have  been 
yellow.  Yellow  and  blue  are  in  the  description  of  this 
phenomenon  entirely  interchangeable. 


ADAPTATION  AND  INDUCTION  277 

The  third  phenomenon  we  promised  to  describe,  can  also 
be  deduced  from  the  theory  simply  as  an  economic  neces- 
sity. If  the  farmer  needs  soap,  needs  it  soon,  and  has 
plenty  of  the  raw  material,  but  cannot  boil  it  in  his  own 
house  (the  yellow  stimulus  prevents  the  blue  excitation  in 
certain  sensitive  cells, — the  "patch"),  he  may  take  the  raw 
material  to  a  near  neighbor's  house,  boil  his  soap,  and  take 
it  back  home  even  before  his  soap  supply  has  become  com- 
pletely exhausted.  The  retinal  "patch,"  while  decomposed 
material  more  and  more  accumulates  in  it,  sends  it  over  its 
border,  has  it  recomposed  on  the  other  side  and  sent  back 
in  a  steady  stream  to  be  decomposed  again. 

This  will  naturally  result  in  two  facts.  First,  along  the 
border  on  the  patch  the  rationing  need  not  be  as  severe  as 
farther  inside.  That  is,  along  the  border  on  the  patch  the 
Yellow  excitation  is  stronger  than  farther  inside.  And  just 
outside  the  border,  in  a  marginal  region,  the  Blue  excitation 
occurs  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  an  adequate  stimulus.  The 
Other-One  tells  us  that  the  marginal  region  of  the  patch 
is  yellower  than  the  inside  of  the  patch,  and  that  it  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  blue  margin. 

This  phenomenon  is  called  simultaneous  induction,  because 
the  blue  outer  margin  and  the  yellow  patch  with  its  intense- 
ly yellow  inner  margin  appear  simultaneously. 

The  marginal  character  of  simultaneous  induction  can 
easily  be  concealed  by  avoiding  patches  and  instead  com- 
posing the  field  of  vision  of  alternate  yellow  (or  blue) 
and  gray  stripes,  making  them  narrow  enough  so  that  the 
margin  on  one  side  just  overlaps  the  margin  on  the  other 
side  and  renders  the  coloring  of  each  stripe  uniform  in  its 
entirety.  The  Other-One,  then,  when  asked  whether  he 
sees  the  field  of  vision  composed  of  yellow  and  gray  stripes, 
tells  us  that  this  is  not  so;  but  that  the  alternate  stripes  are 
yellow  and  blue. 


278  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHEE-ONB 

The  theory,  or  rather  hypothesis,  of  Hering,  assuming 
two  processes  (excitations)  of  recomposition  and  decom- 
position in  the  single  Bkie-Yellow  substance,  is  a  beautiful 
explanation  of  the  four  facts  of  antagonism,  general  adapta- 
tion, successive  induction,  and  simultaneous  induction.  But 
the  division  of  the  spectrum  which  we  have  discussed  in 
this  chapter  is  not  a  mere  hypothesis,  but  a  fact  referring 
to  uncounted  observations  of  the  Other-One's  reactions  to 
visual  stimuli  when  the  latter  are  taken  from  the  spectrum. 


CHAPTER  XII 

Nature  Makes  a  Second  Division  oe  the  Spectrum. 

Perhaps  Nature  made  a  mistake  in  preferring  the  method 
of  dividing  the  spectrum  between  the  two  excitations,  to  the 
method  of  changing  the  ratio  of  the  two  excitations  gradu- 
ally from  one  end  to  the  other  end  of  the  spectrum.  If 
Nature  could  use  two  excitations,  co-existing,  but  varying 
in  ratio,  for  all  the  shades  from  white  to  black,  Nature 
surely  could  have  used  also  two  other  excitations,  co-exist- 
ing, but  varying  in  ratio,  for  the  scale  of  frequency  of  the 
ether  waves. 

The  mistake  consists  in  preferring  a  merely  two-fold 
division  to  a  many-fold,  indeed  unlimited,  division  based 
on  a  ratio  whose  variations  are  unlimited.  A  poppy  flower 
in  a  wheat  field  is  then  found  to  be  not  localizable  because 
the  ether  waves  coming  from  the  flower  and  the  wheat  lie 
in  the  spectrum  on  the  same  side  of  the  division  line. 

In  order  to  remedy  this  (generally  not  vital,  but  never- 
theless undesirable)  defect,  what  can  Nature  do?  We  dis- 
cover that  Nature,  in  order  to  improve  the  frequency  dis- 
crimination of  the  ether  waves,  has  actually  made  a  second 
division  of  the  spectrum  within  the  "Yellow"  region  of 
the  spectrum.  For  this  purpos-e  Nature  has  had  to  intro- 
duce a  third  visual  substance.  And  she  has  selected  this 
third  visual  substance  in  such  a  manner  that  within  it  again 
the  phenomenon  of  antagonism  exists.  That  is,  the  two 
different  excitations  within  it  are  again  of  the  nature  of 
recomposed  and  decomposed  material,  each  one  changeable 
into  the  other. 

(279) 


280 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 


Now,  in  looking  for  a  chemical  substance  which  might 
serve  as  this  third  visual  substance,  Nature  made  a  very- 
queer  choice.  She  selected  a  substance  which-^if  it  is  not 
the  Yellow  excitation  itself,  that  is,  the  part  of  the  Blue- 
Yellow  substance  whose  increase  calls  forth  the  response 
"yellow" — certainly  is  about  the  same  thing  as  the  Yellow 
excitation.  This  selection,  we  shall  see  presently,  has  a 
very  strange  consequence. 

First,  however,  let  us  look  at  a  diagram  showing  the 
point  of  the  spectrum  where  the  division  is  made  within 
the  Yellow  region.  This  region  is  shown  in  the  band  mark- 
ed A  on  the  right,  which  is  identical  with  the  band  marked 
I  in  our  former  diagram. 


Scarlet-Orange- YeIlow-0!ive-Grcen-Peacock-Blue-Violet-Parple 

Tints 

Yellow 

Blue 

First  Two  Excitations 

Red 

Green 

Red 

__^ ^       B 

Second  Two  Excitations 

The  right  half  of  the  region  of  the  Yellow  excitation  is 
called  by  the  Other-One  greenish,  especially  toward  the 
right  where  its  yellowishness  is  less  pronounced.  The  left 
half  of  the  region  of  the  Yellow  excitation  is  called  by  the 
Other-One  reddish,  especially  toward  the  left  where  its 
yellowishness  is  weak.  But  the  middle  of  this  region 
naturally  is  not  called  by  the  Other-One  either  reddish  or 
greenish,  since  there  neither  the  Red  process  nor  the  Green 
process  is  in  existence.    He  calls  it  purely  yellow. 

Now  let  us  return  to  the  strange  consequence  of  Nature's 
selection  of  something  virtually  identical  with  the  Yellow 


THE  RED-GEEEN  SUBSTANCE  281 

excitation,  to  serve  as  the  third  visual  substance,  as  the 
Red-Green  substance.  We  ask  the  Other-One  to  mix  on  a 
color-wheel  a  red  (and  not  at  all  yellowish)  disk  and  a  green 
(and  not  at  all  yellowish)  disk  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
result  is  neither  red  nor  green.  This  can  easily  be  done 
with  just  a  little  care  and  patience,  for  in  the  Red-Green  sub- 
stance recomposition  and  decomposition  exclude  each  other. 
He  adjusts  the  sectors,  taking  less  red  if  it  still  looks  red- 
dish, less  green  if  it  still  looks  green.  Finally  he  pro- 
nounces it  to  be  neither  red  nor  green.  But  if  we  ask  him 
if  it  is  now  absolutely  colorless,  he  tells  us  that  that  is 
far  from  being  true.  He  tells  that  he  would  call  the  disk 
spinning  before  his  eyes  a  kind  of  yellow, — not  straw  yel- 
low, to  be  sure,  but  some  rather  dark  and  muddy  looking 
yellow,  but  yellow  nevertheless. 

This  result  seems  very  strange,  but  loses  its  strangeness 
as  soon  as  we  remember  how  Nature  selected  the  Red- 
Green  substance.  She  made  the  Red-Green  substance 
simply  by  taking  the  Yellow  excitation  and  modifying  it 
very  slightly,  if  at  all.  Now  when  a  red  and  a  green  disk 
are  mixed  on  the  color  wheel  so  that  neither  the  Red  ex- 
citation nor  the  Green  excitation  (neither  recomposition  nor 
decomposition  in  the  Red-Green  substance)  are  allowed,  a 
disturbance  of  some  sort  nevertheless  is  created  in  a  sub- 
stance which  is  virtually  the  Yellow  excitation.  And  this 
disturbance  of  the  entire  Red-Green  substance  seems  to  be 
passed  along  the  nervous  conductors  with  about  the  same 
effect  as  if  the  normal  Yellow  excitation  had  been  created 
within  the  Blue-Yellow  substance  and  were  being  passed 
along  the  nervous  conductors. 

Having  divided  the  Yellow  region  of  the  spectrum.  Nature 
would — we  should  expect — divide  the  Blue  region,  too,  of 
the  spectrum  and  thereby  introduce  into  the  eye  a  further 
visual  substance.     She  divides  this  region  indeed,  but  dis- 


282  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE   OTHEE-ONE 

covers,  we  may  say,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  introduce  a 
fourth  visual  substance.  She  discovers  that,  for  some 
cause,  the  third,  the  Red-Green  substance,  suffers  recom- 
position  in  one  of  the  halves  of  the  Blue  region  of  the 
spectrum,  and  decomposition  in  the  other  half  of  the  Blue 
region.  The  same  Red-Green  substance  is  therefore  se- 
lected to  serve  also  for  the  divisional  discrimination  of  the 
two  parts  of  the  Blue  region  of  the  spectrum. 

The  Other-One,  as  is  indicated  in  the  band  B  of  our 
diagram,  calls  the  left  part  of  the  region  of  the  Blue  ex- 
citation greenish,  especially  toward  the  left,  where  its  blu- 
ishness  is  less  pronounced.  He  calls  the  right  part  of  the 
region  of  the  Blue  excitation  reddish.  But  the  middle  of 
this  region  he  naturally  does  not  call  either  reddish  or 
greenish,  since  there  neither  the  Red  process  nor  the  Green 
process  is  in  existence.     He  calls  it  purely  blue. 

Speaking  of  the  entire  spectrum,  we  must  say,  in  ac- 
cordance with  B  in  the  diagram,  that  the  whole  central  part 
is  by  the  Other-One  pronounced  to  be  greenish  and  both 
ends,  right  and  left,  reddish. 

Now  we  understand  why  the  Other-One  shows  so  much 
admiration  for  the  great  variety  of  coloring  exhibited  by 
spectrums,  for  example,  by  that  spectrum  which  is  a  fre- 
quently seen  natural  phenomenon, — by  the  rainbow.  One  ex- 
treme he  calls  yellowish-red  (scarlet).  This  extreme  lies 
in  our  diagram  on  the  left.  Passing  to  the  right,  he  tells 
us  that  the  scarlet  becomes  more  and  more  yellowish,  until 
he  inclines  to  give  it  the  name  of  orange.  Passing  further 
to  the  right,  the  orange  loses  more  and  more  its  reddish- 
ness  and  becomes  a  color  best  described  by  the  simple  name 
yellow.  Passing  on,  the  yellow  assumes  a  greenish  tinge, 
becomes  olive,  and  then  green  pure  and  simple.  This  hap- 
pens where  the  Green  excitation  is  quite  free  of  any  ad- 
mixture of  either  the  Yellow  excitation  or  the  Blue  excita- 


THE   RAINBOW  283 

tion.  Passing  along  in  the  spectrum,  bluish-green  appears, 
called  peacock.  Blue  takes  its  place.  A  slightly  reddish 
blue  follows  (violet)  and  with  a  somewhat  more  reddish 
blue  (purple)  the  spectrum  fades  away. 

An  interesting  and  notable  fact  is  the  absence  from  this 
spectrum  of  anything  that  the  Other-One  would  call  a  pure 
red,  that  is,  a  red  being  neither  in  the  least  yellowish  nor  in 
the  least  bluish.  Neither  does  nature's  spectrum,  the  rain- 
bow, contain  all  the  colors  of  nature,  altho  it  may  be  said 
to  contain  nearly  all  of  them.  This  red,  lacking  in  the 
spectrum,  can  be  produced  easily  enough  on  the  color 
wheel.  Jilst  add  to  scarlet  (which  is  a  slightly  yellowish 
red)  a  small  sector  of  blue,  enough  to  cancel  the  yellow- 
ishness  of  the  scarlet  without  adding  any  bluish  tinge. 

There  being  four  excitations  in  the  two  "color"  sub- 
stances (not  counting  here  the  Black-White  substance), 
there  must  occur,  in  the  Other-One's  life,  occasions  in  each 
of  which  he  will  not  need  more  than  a  single  one  of  the 
four  color  names  invented  to  suit  those  four  excitations. 
But  there  will  also  be  occasions  in  each  of  which  he  will 
need  two  color  names.  One  can  represent  this  fact  graph- 
ically by  a  square  (this  square  appears  incidentally  on  the 
right  in  the  following  figure)  of  which  the  four  corners 
stand  for  the  four  color  names  when  used  alone,  and  the 
four  sides  stand  for  the  four  possible  pairs  of  color  names, 
red-yellow,  yellow-green,  green-blue,  and  blue-red.  That 
the  two  pairs  red-green  and  blue-yellow  are  impossible 
color  names,  we  have  already  learned  in  discussing  the  fact 
of  antagonism. 

The  color  square  suggests  a  principle  of  classifying  all 
the  colors,  that  is,  all  the  colored  things  of  nature,  by  divid- 
ing them  into  those  standing  at  the  corners  of  the  square 
and  those  standing  at  the  sides  between  the  corners.     We 


284  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

thus  obtain  the  two  groups  of  the  "singular"  colors  (re- 
quiring only  a  single  color  name)  and  the  "dual"  colors 
(requiring  a  double  color  name).  As  we  distinguish  in  the 
grammar  of  many  languages  a  singular,  a  dual,  and  a  plural. 
so  we  might  feel  inclined  to  suggest  to  the  Other-One  to 
use  also  plural  color  names.  But  he  has  no  use  for  them, 
because  of  the  fact  that  the  four  excitations  fall  into  two 
pairs  of  antagonistic  excitations.  This  fact  prevents  any 
three  of  the  four  from  ever  occurring  at  the  same  moment 
in  the  same  retinal  cell.  And  of  course,  it  also  prevents 
all  four  from  thus  occurring.  Thus,  there  can  be  in  the 
Other-One's  world  only  singular  colors  and  dual  colors, 
and  no  plural  colors.  He  speaks  to  us  only  of  four  singu- 
lar colors  and  of  four  classes  of  dual  colors,  each  of  these 
classes  of  dual  colors  containing  infinitely  many  tints. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that  only  the 
names  of  the  singular  colors  are  of  such  ancient  origin  that 
absolutely  nothing  can  be  said  of  it  except  that  these  names 
must  have  their  source  in  elementary  biological  needs:  All 
other  color  words  of  the  dictionaries,  other  than  red,  yel- 
low, green,  and  blue,  have  an  etymological  history.  That 
is,  they  meant  something  else,  a  fruit,  a  flower,  an  animal, 
a  mineral,  and  the  like,  before  they  came  to  mean  a  color. 
Think  of  orange,  olive,  violet,  peacock,  maroon  as  ex- 
amples. In  some  cases  this  is  not  so  obvious,  but  never- 
theless true.  Purple  seems  to  have  no  meaning  other  than 
color.  But  it  is  actually  an  ancient  corruption  of  the  name 
of  the  mollusc  which  the  Phoenicians  collected  in  order  to 
extract  a  bluish-red  pigment. 

If  we  want  to  represent  in  a  graph  that  part  of  the 
Other-One's  color  nomenclature  which  is  indispensable  as 
soon  as  we  include  also  bright  and  dark  discrimination,  wr 
need  a  graph  of  three  dimensions.    The  two  dimensions  of 


SINGULAR  AND  DUAL  COLORS  285 

the  color  square  are  insufficient  because  the  one  co-ordinate 
represents  the  Red-Green  substance  and  the  other  co- 
ordinate the  Blue-Yellow  substance.  We  need  a  third  co- 
ordinate to  represent  the  Black -White  substance. 

The  simplest  body  to  include  all  the  three-dimensional 
color  names  ("color"  in  the  broader  sense,  including  white 
and  black)  is  a  regular  octahedron.  (A  detailed  study  of 
the  Other-One's  color  nomenclature  would  lead  us  to  pre- 
fer a  somewhat  less  regular,  tho  similarly  shaped  body. 
But  in  this  book  there  is  no  room  for  these  details.)  Why 
is  it  an  octahedron,  that  is,  a  body  that  tapers  off  into  a 

7^  "^AA  e^ 


THK   VISUAL   EXCITATIONS    EXHIBITED    IN    AN   OCTAHEDRON. 

point  whenever  we  proceed  from  the  origin  of  the  co- 
ordinates in  any  one  of  the  six  directions?  In  the  left 
octahedron  of  the  figure  we  see  why  this  must  be  so  for 
proceeding  toward  Red  or  Green.  An  ''intense"  or  "fully 
saturated"  red  is  never  excessively  bright  or  excessively 
dark.  Therefore,  in  increasing  its  reddishness,  we  limit 
the  available  space  between  White  and  Black  until  we  end 
in  the  very  point  marked  Red.  The  same  statement  holds 
for  Green. 

And  also,  as  we  saw  in  the  spectrum,  the  more  we  con- 
fine ourselves  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  Green  point,  the 
less  there  can  be  of  the  excitations  Yellow  or  Blue,  for  the 
Green  point  is  the  very  division  point  of  the  spectrum  be- 
tween these  two  excitations.     The  same  can  be  said  of  the 


286  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

Red  point  if  we  think  of  the  spectrum  as  a  ring  in  which 
the  right  and  the  left  end  are  joined  in  a  single  point  of  the 
ring. 

In  the  octahedron  standing  in  the  center  we  see  why  the 
color  body  tapers  if  we  proceed  from  the  origin  of  the  co- 
ordinates in  either  the  direction  Yellow  or  Blue.  The  more 
saturated  a  yellow  or  blue,  the  less  chance  there  is  in  the 
Other-One's  experience  for  its  being  excessively  bright, 
dark,  red,  or  green. 

The  octahedron  on  the  right  shows  that  the  body  tapers 
when  we  rise  above  or  submerge  below  the  "color  square." 
An  excessively  bright  or  excessively  dark  object  never  ap- 
pears reddish,  yellowish,  greenish,  or  bluish,  or  in  any  dual 
coloring.  So  much  for  the  fact  of  experience.  However, 
any  reason  for  this  fact,  any  theoretical  explanation,  can- 
not be  given  either  very  convincingly  or  in  very  simple 
terms.    We  therefore  pass  over  it. 

This  octahedron  (or  a  more  irregular,  but  similarly 
shaped  body  which  may  take  its  place)  is  usually  referred 
to,  for  purely  historical  reasons,  as  the  "color  pyramid." 

We  pointed  out,  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  the  three 
visual  substances,  which  are  represented  in  the  three  di- 
mensions of  our  octahedron,  have  their  natural  geometrical 
representation  in  the  three  "zones"  of  the  retina.  Nature, 
introducing  the  Black-White  substance  in  the  eye,  spread  it 
out  over  the  region  called  the  retina.  The  Blue-Yellow 
substance  was  introduced  much  later  in  evolution,  and  Na- 
ture, it  seems,  has  not  yet  found  the  time  to  spread  it,  from 
the  center  in  a  radial  direction,  farther  than  the  peripheral 
limits  of  the  intermediate  zone.  And  the  Red-Green  sub- 
stance has  not  yet  been  spread  by  Nature  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  central  disk.  Only  in  this  central  region,  therefore, 
does  the  Other-One  possess  the  three    visual    substances 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  VISUAL.  EXCITATIONS  287 

represented  in  the  octahedron.  In  the  surrounding  zone 
he  is  "color-bHnd"  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  this  term; 
that  is,  he  has  no  Red-Green  discrimination.  And  in  the 
peripheral  zone  he  has  no  frequency  discrimination  of  Hght 
whatsoever. 

We  also  understand  why  the  ordinary  type  of  color- 
bhndness,  discussed  already  in  the  preceding  chapter,  con- 
sists in  the  lack  of  the  Red-Green  (and  not  in  the  lack  of 
the  Blue- Yellow)  discrimination.  It  seems  logical  that  in- 
dividuals lacking  an  evolutionary  character  of  the  race, 
should  be  more  likely  to  lack  a  character  lately  acquired 
by  the  race  than  a  character  older  and,  as  stands  to  reason, 
more  firmly  established. 

A  few  color  terms  which  we  hear  the  Other-One  use 
after  he  has  gone  thru  certain  occupations  common  in 
human  society,  should  still  be  mentioned. 

"Complementary"  is  the  name  given  to  any  two  colors 
which  can  be  mixed  so  that  the  result  is  "colorless,"  that 
is,  neither  reddish,  nor  yellowish,  nor  greenish,  nor  blu- 
ish. The  name  has  an  historical  origin,  referring  to  the 
fact  that  colorless  compound  light,  like  sunlight,  can  be 
physically  split  in  infinitely  many  ways  into  pairs  of  colored 
light,  and  that  any  two  "twins"  of  this  kind  can  again  be 
physically  combined  into  the  "complete"  light,  that  is,  the 
unsplit  and  colorless  light.  ("Complementary"  is  derived 
from  the  word  "complete,"  not  from  compliment.) 

There  is  no  scientific  relation  whatsoever  between  com- 
plementariness  and  antagonism.  The  former  is  a  physical, 
the  latter  a  biological  term  The  only  and  fortuitous  rela- 
tion between  these  terms  consists  in  the  fact  that  one  of  the 
many  pairs  of  complementary  lights  of  the  physicist  looks 
like  the  one  pair  of  singular  colors,  yellow  and  blue.  It 
is  especially  important  to  remember  that  there  is  no  pair 


288  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

of  complementary  lights  which  looks  like  the  other  pair 
of  singular  colors,  red  and  green.  If  one  light  looks  like 
the  singular  color  red,  its  complementary  light  would  look 
like  the  dual  color  bluish-green.  And  if  one  light  looks  like 
the  singular  color  green,  its  complementary  light  would  look 
like  the  dual  color  bluish-red. 

Sometimes  we  hear  the  Other-One  speak  of  certain 
groups  of  colors  as  "primary,  principal,  fundamental,  or 
original"  colors.  All  these  terms  are  entirely  dispensable 
for  the  psychologist,  to  whom  the  distinction  between  singu- 
lar and  dual  colors  is  the  only  one  needed.  But  naturally, 
if  the  psychologist  were  pressed  to  tell  his  idea  of  the  Other- 
One's  "primary,  principal,  fundamental,  and  original,"  as 
distinguished  from  the  Other-One's  "secondary  and  de- 
rived," color  experiences,  the  psychologist  could  do  nothing 
but  call  his  four  singular  colors  primary,  etc.,  and  the  dual 
colors  secondary,  etc. 

But  the  technologist,  the  man  engaged  in  industrial  color 
work,  such  as  color  photography,  color  printing,  etc.,  would 
find  an  entirely  different  group  of  colors  most  interesting, 
that  is,  most  primary,  principal,  fundamental,  and  original, 
to  him.  In  technology  the  chief  problem  is  to  find  the 
smallest  numbers  of  colors  (that  is,  usually,  pigments) 
which  can  be  mixed  in  such  varying  manners  that  all  the 
tints  of  nature  as  well  as  a  colorless  impression  may  re- 
sult. The  smallest  number  fulfilling  this  condition  is  three. 
There  are,  however,  infinitely  many  "triplets"  of  colors 
fulfilling  this  condition.  Among  them  the  technologist  usu- 
ally, but  not  always,  uses  scarlet,  violet,  and  green,  be- 
cause of  certain  advantages  with  respect  to  the  saturation 
of  the  resulting  tints.  These  three  then  are  to  him  his  chief 
or  "primary"  colors. 


TECHNOLOGICAL    COLOR   CLASSIFICATIONS 


289 


A  simple  method  of  finding  a  triplet  fulfilling  these  tech- 
nological conditions  consists  in  selecting  two  singular,  but 
not  antagonistic  colors,  and  adding  that  dual  color  which 
resembles  the  two  singular  colors  left  out.  For  example, 
blue,  red,  and  yellowish-green.  It  is  then  easy  to  demon- 
strate that  this  triplet  fulfills  all  the  conditions.  From 
yellowish-green  we  easily  get,  by  adding  some  blue,  the 
singular  color  green ;  and  also,  by  adding  some  red,  the 
singular  color  yellow.  Having  then  all  singular  colors,  we 
can  easily  get,  by  combining  them,  all  possible  tints  and 
also  the  colorless  impressions.  But  all  such  triplets  of 
colors,  we  must  not  forget,  are  of  importance  only  in 
technology,  not  in  psychology. 

The  artist,  the  painter,  again  has  a  diflferent  notion  as 
to  what  colors  are  "primary,  principal,  fundamental,  and 
original"  to  him.  The  painter  would  like  to  have  as  many 
different  pigments  handy  on  his  palette  as  there  is  room 
for,  since  this  facilitates  his  work.  But  the  space  on  the 
palette  is  limited,  and  having  to  buy  and  store  away  many 
tubes  or  cakes  is  inconvenient  and  uneconomical.  So  he 
tries  to  restrict  himself  to  buying  a  limited  number  of  pig- 
ments. He  rarely,  if  ever,  restricts  himself  to  less  than 
six.  So  the  Other-One,  having  asked  a  painter  what  his 
"primary"  colors  are,  without  which  he  would  not  care  to 
begin  any  painting,  is  quite  likely  to  have  heard  that  there 
are  six  primary  colors.  To  the  psychologist  this  is  of  very 
little  interest. 

Everything  that  we  have  said  in  the  preceding  chapters 
about  antagonism,  general  adaptation,  successive  induction, 
and  simultaneous  induction,  applies  to  Red  and  Green  with 
proper  modification  as  it  applied  to  Blue  and  Yellow.  And 
it  applies,  with  the  exception  of  antagonism,  even  to  Dark 
and  Bright. 


290  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE    OTHEE-ONE 

There  are  innumerable  other  facts  which  we  might  dis- 
cuss, concerning  the  Other-One's  observed  behavior  of  giv- 
ing this  or  that  name  or  significance  to  this  or  that  situa- 
tion to  which  his  eyes  are  exposed.  We  select  only  one 
to  mention  here,  the  fact  of  "positive  after-images."  A 
color  reaction  of  the  Other-One  due  to  successive  induc- 
tion is  often  called  a  "negative  after-image"  because  the 
induction  stimulus  causes  the  Other-One  to  give  the 
"image,"  that  is,  the  object  seen,  "afterwards"  a  name 
which  is  "negative"  in  the  sense  of  being  due  to  antag- 
onism or  to  the  opposition  of  darkness  and  light.  What,  then, 
is  a  positive  after-image? 

It  happens  that  the  Other-One  calls  the  object,  "after" 
it  has  disappeared  from  its  former  place  in  the  field  of 
vision,  by  "the  same"  name,  implying  its  continued  and 
unchanged  existence.  For  example,  we  notice  that  the 
Other-One  does  this  when  he  looks  at  the  setting  sun  and 
then  turns  his  head  away ;  or  when  the  stimulus  is  the  glow- 
ing filament  of  an  electric  light  bulb.  He  tells  us  that  the 
sun  or  the  glowing  filament  seems  to  be  still  present. 

The  positive  after-image  is  in  one  respect  the  opposite 
of  "general  adaptation."  In  general  adaptation  the  excita- 
tion ceases  before  the  stimulation  ceases.  But  in  the  case 
of  a  positive  after-image,  the  excitation  outlasts  the  stimu- 
lation. 

The  stimulus  must  always  be  very  strong  if  it  is  to  cause 
a  positive  after-image ;  or,  if  not  very  strong,  very  pro- 
longed. A  weak  stimulus  gives  only  a  negative  after-image. 
A  strong  stimulus,  however,  gives  both.  The  positive  after- 
image is  always  followed  by  a  negative  after-image.  Some- 
times the  Other-One  tells  us  that  that  negative  after-image 
which  follows  a  positive  after-image,  might  more  properly 
be  given  the  name  of  a  "flight  of  colors." 


AFTEB-IMAGES  291 

The  three  visual  substances,  when  strongly  disturbed  by 
intense  stimulation,  seem  to  pass  thru  a  sort  of  "see-saw- 
ing" process  before  regaining  their  quietness.  The  Black- 
White  substance  see-saws  thru  an  alternate  prevalence  of 
the  Dark  excitation  and  the  Bright  excitation ;  and  the 
two  color  substances  see-saw  thru  an  alternation  of  recom- 
position  and  decomposition.  But  the  lengths  of  the  periods 
of  see-sawing  are  different  for  the  three  substances.  The 
total  result  is  a  combination  of  excitations  which  varies 
from  moment  to  moment,  and  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  find 
any  orderliness.  To  it  the  Other-One  is  apt  to  find  it  im- 
possible to  react  otherwise  than  by  simply  calling  it  a  flight 
of  colors. 

The  phenomena  of  adaptation  and  after-images  may  be 
written  in  their  logical  relations  in  the  following  form. 

General    Adaptation 
Local     Adaptation — Simultaneous  Induction 

Successive    Induction — Negative    After-Imagery 
Positive    After- Imagery 

The  terms  which,  in  the  above  form,  stand  side  by  side 
on  the  same  level,  are  simply  synonymous.  The  terms 
which  stand  directly  above  and  below  each  other  are  thus 
placed  to  indicate  that  their  relationship  consists  merely  in 
the  fact  that  the  one  suggests  the  other  logically. 

It  may  appear  strange  to  us  that  Nature  should  have 
chosen  the  visual  substances  and  the  excitations  within  them 
in  such  a  mamier  as  to  call  forth  these  "wasted  reactions," 
the  color  illusions  described.  But  an  excuse  for  Nature  is 
the  fact  that  these  illusions  are  not  as  common  in  the  Other- 
One's  life  as  they  appear  to  be  from  a  theoretical  study 
like  this.  They  depend  for  their  full  development  at  any 
moment  on  a  restful  position  of  the  eyes  which  is  but  rare- 
ly realized  outside  of  the  scientific  laboratories  where  it  is 


292  PSYCHOLOGY    OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

specially  fostered.  Nature  has  overcome  the  difficulty 
created  by  the  possibility  of  color  illusions  by  making  the 
eyes  such  movable  and  extraordinarily  restless  organs  as 
they  are. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

The  Other-One  is  Equipped  with  a  Sense  Organ 
Particularly  Suited  to  Signals. 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  enumerated  the  most  interest- 
ing reflexes.  We  found  among  them  a  group  of  special 
importance,  the  reflexes  of  signaling.  The  signaling  re- 
flexes are  indispensable  for  social  life.  And  we  stated  that 
the  various  species  of  animals  had  been  equipped  by  Nature 
also  with  special  reflexes  enabling  them  to  respond  prop- 
erly to  these  signals  coming  from  other  individuals  of  the 
same  species  or  of  a  different  species. 

A  reflex,  we  know,  presupposes  a  chain  of  nervous  con- 
ductors leading  from  a  definite  sensory  point  to  a  definite 
motor  point.  But  it  also  presuppoBcs  that  this  motor  point 
is  properly  equipped  with  a  nsotor  organ.  And  it  further 
presupposes  that  the  sensory  point  is  adequately  equipped 
with  a  sense  organ. 

We  learned  that  in  general  the  most  efficient  signals  are 
acoustic  signals.  We  therefore  ask,  now,  what  Nature  has 
done  in  order  to  enable  animals  to  respond  properly  to 
acoustic  signals.  When  the  acoustic  signals  are  complex 
and  the  proper  reflex  (or  habit)  response  depends  on  con- 
densation of  the  nervous  functioning  called  forth  by  a 
multiplicity  of  acoustic  signals,  we  speak  of  "perception," 
and  here  customarily  of  "auditory  perception."  We  can, 
therefore,  repeat  our  last  question  in  the  following  form : 
How  has  Nature  equipped  that  sense  organ  upon  which  the 
Other-One's  social  reflexes  particularly  depend,  that  sense 
organ  which  serves  the  Other-One's  auditory  perceptions, 
his  "auditory  organ"  or,  briefly,  ear? 

(293) 


_.  -..a 


294  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

An  acoustic  signal  is  a  trembling  motion  of  an  object 
capable  of  causing  in  the  elastic  medium  surrounding  it 
(air  or  water)  a  periodic  density  change.  It  is  one  of  the 
laws  of  physics  that  a  periodic  density  change  will  then  oc- 
cur, after  a  very  short  time,  also  at  any  other  place  within 
the  elastic  medium,  provided  the  distance  of  this  other 
place  is  not  excessive. 

Nature's  first  problem  then  consisted  in  modifying  the 
skin  of  animals  living  in  water  or  air  so  that  density 
changes,  that  is,  pressure  changes,  of  the  water  or  air  could 
very  easily  bring  about  in  sensitive  cells  chemical  changes, 
— excitations.  The  so-called  lateral-line  organs  of  the  fishes 
are  such  modifications  of  the  skin. 

However,  the  pressure  changes  acting  ordinarily  on  the 
lateral-line  organs  of  the  fishes  are  still  very  great  in  com- 
parison with  the  pressure  changes  which  we  call  sound, 
caused  by  minute  trembling  motions  of  objects  at  distances 
often  very  considerable.  Nature  found  that  a  sense  organ 
of  extraordinary  sensitiveness  could  be  constructed  by  let- 
ting the  sensitive  cells  end  in  fine  hairs  and  by  exposing 
these  hairs  in  such  a  manner  that  the  slightest  pressure 
changes  in  the  medium  surrounding  the  animal  would  ef- 
fect a  bending  of  these  hairs. 

A  very  simple  sense  organ  of  this  kind  is  a  cavity,  located 
within  the  animal's  body  or  near  its  surface,  having  a  fur- 
like lining  and  being  filled,  of  course,  with  the  common 
fluid  of  the  animal,  with  lymph.  Our  figure  shows  two 
views  of  such  a  cavity.  In  the  left  part  of  the  figure  the 
hairs  are  all  in  the  normal  condition,  straight.  At  the  left 
is  a  density  wave  approaching.  It  has  already  reached  the 
interior  of  the  animal,  but  not  yet  the  cavity  in  question. 
The  right  part  of  the  figure  shows  the  effect  on  the  hairs  of 
the  passage  of  the  density  wave  thru  the  cavity.    The  wave 


A  SENSE  OBGAN   FOB  ACOUSTIC   SIGNALS 


295 


is  not  likely  to  pass  thru  the  lymph  of  the  cavity  with  the 
same  velocity  with  which  it  passes  thru  the  substance  of 
which  the  wall  of  the  cavity  consists.  The  velocity  may  be 
greater  or  less.  That  depends  on  the  physical  conditions 
of  the  animal's  anatomy.  What  is  important  for  us  to  keep 
in  mind  is  merely  that  the  velocity  is  not  likely  to  be  the 
same. 

In  our  figure  the  velocity  in  the  lymph  is  supposed  to  be 
greater.  The  wave  surface  has  advanced  in  the  lymph 
farther  to  the  right  than  in  the  wall  of  the  cavity.  The 
particles  of  the  substance  have  been  pushed  together  and 
the  hairs  between  them  have  had  to  follow,  bending  to  the 
right.  Of  course,  the  bending  is  exaggerated  in  the  figure. 
Behind,  that  is,  to  the  left,  just  the  opposite  is  observable 
at  this  moment.    The  particles  of  the  wall  are  being  pushed 


TTTTTTTTrr^ 


MjdlLU^ 


AN    EARLY  STAGE   IN  THE   EVOLUTION   OF  THE   AUDITORY   OK'GAN. 

together,  into  greater  density.  The  roots  of  the  hairs  are 
here  farther  to  the  right  than  their  tips.  That  is,  the  hairs 
are  bent  to  the  left.     It  is  worth  mentioning  that  this  kind 


296  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

of  "hair  organ"  not  only  can  be  very  sensitive  to  small 
density  changes,  but  also  is  capable  of  being  affected  no 
matter  in  what  direction  the  density  waves  pass  thru  the 
cavity,  since  the  "fur  lining"  covers  all  walls  of  the  cavity 
and  is  thus  equally  exposed  in  all  directions. 

The  Other-One's  "ear,"  we  shall  presently  learn,  is  much 
more  complicated  than  such  a  hair  lined  cavity.  But  the 
essential  features  of  this  simple  hair  organ  are  present 
within  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Other-One's 
ear,  while  functioning  in  a  far  more  complicated  manner, 
in  accordance  with  the  purposes  of  its  anatomical  struc- 
tures, functions  at  the  same  time  in  this  primitive  man- 
ner described.  The  complicated  function,  that  is,  does  not 
preclude  the  primitive  function.  And  when  the  Other-One, 
in  the  course  of  a  disease,  loses  the  more  delicate  and  com- 
plicated functions  of  his  auditory  organ,  he  may  still  retain 
the  organ's  capacity  for  this  primitive  function.  Many 
strange  observations  about  the  hearing  of  people  who  are 
hard  of  hearing  or  almost  deaf,  become  thus  understand- 
able. 

This  primitive  "hair  organ"  was  further  developed  by 
Nature  in  the  following  manner.  The  cavity  was  enlarged. 
The  "fur  lining"  was  removed  from  the  wall  and  floated 
within  the  cavity,  not  quite  freely  however,  but  attached 
to  the  walls  in  such  a  way  as  to  form  a  sort  of  partition 
dividing  the  cavity  into  two  rooms.  To  each  of  these 
rooms  a  window  was  given.  These  windows  open  upon 
a  tunnel  whfch  leads  out  into  the  surrounding  medium,  the 
water  or  air  in  which  the  animal  lives.  But  the  distance 
from  the  outer  air  (or  water)  to  one  of  these  windows, 
both  marked  W  in  the  figure,  is  somewhat  greater  than  to 
the  other  window.  The  result  is  that  the  incoming  den- 
sity wave  never  exerts  its  maximum  pressure  upon  both 


THE   EVOLUTION    OF    THE   AUDITORY    ORGAN         297 

windows  at  exactly  the  same  moment,  but  first  upon  the 
one,  later  upon  the  other,  and  so  on  alternately.  Conse- 
quently the  lymph  in  the  cavity  is  pushed  now  in  the  di- 


TWO     UNSTMMETRICALLY    LOCATED 
WINDOWS. 

rection  from  the  one  to  the  other,  then  from  the  other  to 
the  one,  and  so  forth,  alternately.  This  motion  of  the 
lymph,  however,  in  this  case,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  the 
kind  of  motion  spoken  of  in  the  primitive  organ,  that  is, 
as  molecular  motion  within  the  lymph.  Rather  it  is  a  mo- 
tion of  the  whole  mass  of  the  lymph,  up  and  down  in  the 
figure. 

In  a  cross-section  avoiding  the  windows  the  cavity  with 
the  partition  within  reappears  in  another  figure.  On  the 
left  of  the  figure  the  partition  appears  in  its  undisturbed 


THE  BENDING  OF  THE  HAIRS 
ON    THE    PARTITION. 


position,  and  on  the  right  of  the  same  figure  it  appears 
bent  down  (exaggeratedly,  of  course,  in  the  drawing).  A 
kind  of  very  delicate  membrane  (maybe  a  mass  of  threads 
like  a  brush  rather  than  a  membrane)  is  fastened  to  one 
side  of  the  wall  and  touches  the  hairs  so  that  their  tips  ad- 
here to  it  somewhat  firmly.  It  is  immediately  clear,  then, 
that  the  partition  can  not  be  pushed  up  and  down  by  the 


298  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

moving  lymph  without  causing  a  bending  of  the  hairs, 
which  are  rooted  in  the  partition  and  have  their  tips  in 
the  upper,  brush-like,  membrane. 

We  thus  understand  the  "second  method"  of  function- 
ing of  the  Other-One's  auditory  organ.  Again  it  depends 
on  a  bending  of  the  hairs  of  the  sensitive  cells.  The  great- 
er sensitiveness  of  the  organ  is  secured  by  doing  away  with 
the  necessity  of  the  density  wave  passing  thru  the  substance 
of  the  animal's  body.  Instead,  the  wave  is  led  thru  a 
passage,  or  tunnel,  as  we  said,  to  the  two  unsymmetric- 
ally  located  windows.  There  is  less  loss  of  energ>'  in  the 
passage  thru  the  tunnel  than  in  the  passage  thru  the  body 
substance,  and  accordingly  this  second  method  of  function- 
ing of  the  organ  must  be  regarded  as  an  improved,  less 
primitive,  more  developed  one. 

It  is  clear  that  for  this  second  form  of  fimctioning  much 
depends  on  the  flexibility  of  the  two  windows.  These  win- 
dows should  be  protected  against  intruders  like  small  para- 
sites living  on  the  surface  of  the  animal  and  capable  of 
entering  the  tunnel.  And  in  animals  living  in  the  air,  like 
the  Other-One,  the  windows  should  be  protected  also 
against  the  drying  effect  of  the  outer  air.  Nature,  there- 
fore, has  closed  the  tunnel  with  a  membrane,  the  "ear 
drum"  or  "tympanum."  The  tympanum  happens  to  be 
slightly  funnel-shaped.  But  this  shape  is  not  very  essential. 
That  the  protection  afforded  by  the  tympanum  to  the  Other- 
One's  "windows"  of  the  inner,  lymph-filled  cavity  is  very 
important,  is  proved  by  much  clinical  experience  concern- 
ing the  results  of  a  breaking  of  the  tympanum. 

Would  it  not  occur  to  you,  having  the  Creator's  power, 
that  you  might  now  utilize  this  drum,  created  merely  for 
protective  purposes,  for  the  transfer  of  the  sound  energy 
directly  to  one  of  the  windows?     The  advantage  result- 


SECONDARY   USE   OF  THE   PROTECTIVE  DRUM         299 

ing  would  be  that  the  amount  of  energy  usable  would  no 
longer  be  limited  by  the  amount  of  asymmetry  in  the  loca- 
tion of  the  two  windows  relative  to  the  tunnel.  The  trans- 
fer of  the  energy  is  easily  accomplished  by  means  of  any 
kind  of  solid  object  attached  both  to  the  drum  and  to  one 
of  the  windows.  In  the  birds  and  lower  vertebrates  this 
solid  is  a  simple  slender  rod,  sometimes  with  a  triangular 


USB   OF   THE    PROTECTIVE    DRUM    FOR    A    SECONDARY 

PURPOSE. 

opening  as  seen  in  the  figure.  In  the  mammals  it  consists 
of  three  little  jointed  bones,  the  "auditory  ossicles."  One 
of  them  looks  very  much  like  a  stirrup  and  is  therefore 
called  the  "stirrup."  Its  plate  is  attached  to  one  of  the 
windows,  the  "oval  window."  The  ossicle  forming  the 
middle  link  of  the  chain  is  called  the  "anvil"  because  it 
faintly  resembles  an  anvil  in  shape.  The  third  ossicle, 
which  is  attached  to  the  drum,  resembles  a  hammer  still 
more  faintly  than  the  second  can  be  said  to  resemble  an 
anvil.  It  is  called  hammer  chiefly  because  a  thing  acting 
on  an  anvil  seems  to  deserve  the  name  "hammer." 

Thus  there  is  a  "third  method"  of  functioning  of  the 
Other-One's  auditory  organ.  It  differs  from  the  other  two 
by  including  the  function  of  the  chain  of  ossicles  located 
in  the  air-filled  cavity  of  the  "middle  ear,"  which  is  the 
name  given  to  the  space  between  the  drum  and  the  win- 
dows. From  what  we  have  said  it  is  clear  that  the  function- 
ing of  the  sense  organ  does  not  absolutely  depend  on  the 
existence  of  the  drum  and  the  ossicles.  Indeed,  even  when, 
as  in  a  normal  condition  of  the  Other-One,  they  exist  free 


300 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 


from  all  impediments,  their  significance  seems  to  be  the 
less,  the  greater  the  frequency  of  the  sound  waves  acting 
on  the  sense  organ.  When  the  frequency  is  high,  and  the 
waves  are  therefore  of  small  length  (a  few  inches  only), 
and  the  asymmetry  difference  of  the  windows  is  an  ap- 
preciable fraction  of  the  wave  length,  the  ossicles  are  hard- 
ly needed.  But  for  the  lower  tones,  where  the  frequency 
is  small  and  the  wave  length  great,  the  mediating  action  of 
the  drum  and  the  ossicles  seems  to  add  much  to  the  effici- 
ency of  the  organ. 

If  you  now  examine  the  sense  organ  created,  you  dis- 
cover that  it  might  be  improved  still  further. 

Think  of  a  fox  whose  ear  is  struck  at  the  same  time  by 
the  whistling  of  the  wind  and  the  cackling  of  a  fowl.  If  he 
needs  food,  he  ought  to  react  negatively  localizing  the  high 
tones  of  the  wind  and  positively  localizing  the  lower  tones 
of  the  fowl.  Or  think  of  a  dog  whose  ear  is  struck  at  the 
same  time  by  the  roaring  of  a  lion  and  the  much  higher 
voice  of  his  master.  You  cannot  fail  to  notice  the  advan- 
tage which  must  result  to  the  dog  from  the  ability  to  per- 
form both  reflex  responses  at  the  same  time,  to  run  away 

^* 


S.b 


M. 


Mk 


ONK  SENSORY  POINT  SERV- 
ING SKVER'AL  MOTOR  POINTS 
OR    EACH    ONE    SEPARATELY. 


from  the  lion,  but  in  the  direction  of  his  master  rather  than 
in  any  other  direction  which  might  also  lead  away  from  the 
lion. 


FREQUENCY  OF   JEKKS  301 

In  accordance  with  what  we  have  already  learned  it  must 
be  emphasized  that  this  ability,  in  general,  by  no  means 
requires  that  both  excitations  originate  in  distinct  sensory 
points.  They  might  originate  in  one  point.  We  have  con- 
vinced ourselves  previously  that  the  neurons,  at  least  some 
of  the  neurons  of  every  animal,  possess  a  specific  (spe- 
cifically low)  resistance.  As  a  result  of  it  two  excitations 
originating  in  the  same  sensory  point,  say  Sab  in  our  fig- 
ure, may  become  separated,  say  at  S%b.  and  may  be  con- 
ducted, further  on,  each  virtually  over  its  own  path,  one 
to  Ma,  the  other  to  Mb. 

But  it  seems  nevertheless  necessary,  in  the  case  of  the 
auditory  excitations,  since  these  depend  for  their  distinctive 
qualities  on  the  frequency  with  which  the  sensitive  hair  cells 
are  disturbed,  that  of  two  kinds  of  auditory  excitations 
originating  during  the  same  time  the  one  must  spring  from 
one  sensitive  cell  (or  group  of  such  cells)  disturbed  with 
one  frequency,  and  the  other  excitation  from  another  sen- 
sitive cell  disturbed  with  another  frequency.  Why? — 
Simply  because  there  is  no  concrete  meaning  in  saying  that 
a  body  trembles  with  two  or  more  frequencies  of  jerks  at 
one  time.  The  total  number  of  jerks  during  the  unit  of 
time  is  the  frequency  with  which  it  trembles ;  and  there  is 
only  one  such  total  number. 

If  there  must  by  necessity  be  during  the  same  time  an- 
other frequency  of  trembling  causing  another  excitation, 
this  must  be  caused  to  happen  in  another  sensitive  cell. 

But  at  some  later  time  the  other  frequency  of  trembling 
may  very  well  happen  in  the  same,  first,  cell.  Each  of  the 
sensory  points  may  have — at  dift'erent  times — any  one  of 
the  thousands  of  possible  auditory  excitations  aroused  with- 
in it ;  it  all  depends  on  the  frequency  with  which  the  sen- 
sitive cell  happens  to  be  jerked  about  at  the  moment. 


302  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

Fortunately  Nature's  task  of  equipping  the  auditory  cells 
is  simplified  by  the  limited  need  for  localization  reflex  paths. 
In  the  eye  every  sensory  point,  we  remember,  has  its  own 
localizing  reflex  path.  In  the  ear  there  are  not  thousands, 
but  only  two  different  localizing  reflexes,  one  belonging  to 
all  the  sensitive  cells  of  the  left  ear  in  common,  the  other 
to  all  the  sensitive  cells  of  the  right  ear  in  common.  This 
opens  the  way  for  easily  assigning  to  any  one  sensory 
point  a  large  number  of  reactions  among  the  eight  classes 
of  fundamental  reflex  actions  which  we  distinguished. 

Acting  as  the  Creator's  deputy,  you  now  want  to  improve 
the  auditory  organ  in  such  a  manner  that  a  compound  den- 
sity wave  acting  on  the  windows  will  cause  certain  sen- 
sitive cells  (located,  we  know,  in  the  "partition"  of  the 
Ivmph-filled  cavity)  to  be  jerked  about  as  many  times  as 
the  frequency  of  the  highest  component  tone,  other  cells 
as  many  times  as  the  frequency  of  the  lower  component 
tone,  and  other  cells  with  still  lesser  frequency  if  there  are 
still  further  physical  components. 

All  that  you  have  to  do  in  order  to  bring  this  about  is  to 
lengthen  that  lymph-filled  cavity.  You  must  stretch  it, 
change  its  shape  from  that  of  a  sack-like  cavity  into  a  kind 
of  tube,  at  one  end  of  which  the  windows  are  located,  and 
stretch,  of  course,  the  partition  also  lengthwise  thru  the 
tube.  The  reason  for  stretching  the  cavity  and  changing 
it  into  a  tube  is  no  other  than  that  of  obliging  the  density 
change  of  the  external  medium  to  spread  its  effect  more  or 
less  over  the  partition,  that  is,  over  further  or  fewer  sen- 
sitive cells,  according  as  the  density  change  of  the  com- 
pound sound  wave  happens  to  be  vigorous  or  faint  at  each 
moment.  In  the  more  primitive,  sack-like  cavity  virtually 
all  the  cells  are  at  every  moment  indiscriminately  under 
the  influence  of  the  external  density  change.     Now,  in  the 


ELONGATION  OF  THE  CAVITY  AND  ITS  PARTITION      303 

tube,  at  any  infinitely  small  moment,  some  are  and  some  are 
not  under  this  influence,  and  at  another  moment  others  are 
and  others  are  not. 

Some  fifty  years  ago  curious  reasons  were  believed  to 
have  been  Nature's  purpose  in  stretching  out  the  cavity 
and  its  partition.  For  example,  it  was  believed  that  Nature 
had  thus  developed  the  partition  into  a  sort  of  layer  of 
harp  strings  or  grand  piano  strings  on  which  the  sound 
wave  could  then  "play  by  resonance"  as  you  can  play  on 
the  piano  strings,  without  touching  them,  if  you  merely 
step  on  the  pedal  and,  having  previously  raised  the  lid,  sing 
or  speak  into  the  box.  The  piano  then  sings  or  speaks 
back.  Thus  the  Other-One's  "ear,"  it  was  said,  takes  up 
the  sound  and  speaks,  not  back,  but  to  the  Other -One's 
nervous  system. 

The  more  plausible  reason  for  the  stretching  of  the  cavity 
and  partition — simply  in  order  to  extend  the  sensitive  sur- 
face of  the  organ  in  the  direction  away  from  the  windows, 
that  is,  from  the  nearest  possible  point  of  attack — was 
first  given  by  the  French  otologist,  Pierre  Bonnier,  to  whom 
belongs  the  honor  of  suggesting  this  idea  altho  he  never 
showed  in  detail  the  consequences  for  auditory  perception 
of  this  stretching  of  the  sense  organ.  We  then  have  here 
the  "fourth  method"  of  functioning  of  the  Other-One's 
auditory  organ. 

There  are  various  ways  of  showing  in  a  graph  a  com- 
pound sound  curve.  Our  figure  shows  such  a  curve  of 
density  changes  in  the  air  produced  by  two  (let  us  re- 
member "two")  musical  instruments  of  which  one  causes 
two  "waves"  while  the  other  causes  three  during  the  same 
time  unit,  a  small  fraction  of  a  second. 

There  are  also  various  ways  of  showing  in  a  graph  the 
shape  which  the  partition,  seen  in  section  lengthwise,  as- 


304 


PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 


sumes  at  the  moments  whenever  the  sound  curve  shows  a 
maximum  or  minimum  of  air  pressure.  The  next  figure 
gives  us  one  sample  graph  (reproduced  from  the  writer's 
"Mechanics  of  the  Inner  Ear,"  U.  of  Mo.,  1907)  which 
corresponds  to  the  sound  curve  of  the  preceding  figure. 
The  dotted  line  represents  the  place  where  the  partition 
would  be  found  while  nothing  at  all  was  going  on.  If  the 
motion  of  the  lymph  in  the  double  tube-like  cavity  is  to- 
ward the  oval  window  (the  stirrup  window),  the  parti- 
tion yields  upwards  until  it  becomes  so  tightly  stretched 
that  it  will  go  no  farther  up.  This  limit  is  of  course  shown 
in  the  figure  with  great  exaggeration.    If  the  motion  of  the 


8  Y  0  ^'         f  f 

TWO  SERIES  OF  SOUND   WAVES  COMPOUNDED. 


>^ 


lymph  is  toward  the  other  window  (the  so-called  round 
window)  the  partition  behaves  in  the  same  manner  down- 
wards. 


THE  COMPOUND  WAVE  SPREADS  OVEB  THE  PARTITION  305 

It  is  important,  however,  to  keep  always  in  mind  that, 
whenever  a  reversal  occurs,  a  lowering  of  the  air  pres- 
sure instead  of  a  rising  or  vice  versa,  the  piece  of  the  parti- 
tion which  reacts  first  to  the  reversal  is  that  near  the  win- 
dows ;  and  only  when  this  piece  will  yield  no  further  to 
the  onrush  of  the  fluid,  will  a  further  piece  of  the  partition 
yield,  always  proceeding  in  this  manner  from  the  left  to 
the  right,  no  matter  whether  the  partition  goes  up  or  down. 


B 
C 

D 

C 

r 

G 


II 


19 


244 


30 


AN   APPROXIMATE   KEPRESENTATION   OF  WHAT 
HAPPENS  TO  THE  PARTITION. 

This  must  naturally  so  occur  in  accordance  with  the  physi- 
cal law  that  every  motion  occurs  with  the  least  possible  ex- 
penditure of  energy  both  in  shifting  the  masses  and  in  over- 
coming internal  friction.  And  we  remember  that  for  this 
very  purpose  of  extending  the  eflfect  to  a  distance  from  the 
windows  which  is  the  greater,  the  greater  the  pressure 
change,  the  cavity  and  the  partition  have  been  stretched 
out  in  the  direction  away  from  the  windows. 

Now,  at  A  in  the  last  figure  we  find  in  the  upper  limit 
an  initial  piece  of  the  partition — thirty  units  in  length,  let 
us  assume.  We  find  this  piece  in  the  upper  limit  because 
the  density  change  represented  in  the  preceding  figure  has 
occurred  periodically  many  times  already.  We  do  not  con- 
sider at  all  the  more  complicated  changes  occurring  in  the 


306  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHEK-ONE 

partition  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  sound,  since  they 
interest  us  much  less. 

From  the  time  A  to  the  time  B  there  is  a  pressure  in- 
crease in  the  air  of  24^  units.  At  the  moment  B,  accord- 
ingly, we  find  an  initial  piece  of  the  partition  24^^  units 
long  in  the  lower  limit. 

From  B  to  C  the  pressure  decreases  24j^  to  13^,  that 
is,  by  11  units.  We  therefore  find  at  the  moment  C  an 
initial  piece  of  the  partition  11  units  long  in  the  upper 
limit. 

From  C  to  D  there  is  a  pressure  increase  from  135^  to 
I63/2,  that  is,  by  3  units.  We  therefore  find  at  the  moment 
D  an  initial  piece  of  the  partition  3  units  long  in  the  lower 
limit.  The  piece  directly  following  on  the  right  is  drawn 
as  being  still  in  the  upper  limit  in  which  it  was  at  C.  It 
can  hardly  have  changed  its  position  appreciably,  since  no 
force  has  been  acting  on  it  meanwhile.  The  next  piece, 
following  on  the  right  as  far  as  the  mark  24^/2,  is  drawn 
as  being  still  in  the  lower  limit  in  Vv-hich  it  was  at  B.  The 
following  piece  is  still  in  the  upper  limit  as  at  the  moment 
A.  And  the  continuation  of  tlie  partition  farther  to  the 
right  is  unchanged  since  this  sound  wave  is  presumed  to  be 
not  strong  enough  to  affect  it. 

From  D  to  E  there  is  a  pressure  decrease  of  11  units. 
Accordingly,  11  units  of  the  partition  are  sucked  up.  This 
upward  movement,  then,  is  what  happens  to  the  first  three ; 
but  the  eight  following  (from  3  to  11)  are  already  up. 
These  eight  are  therefore  left  where  they  are,  and  eight 
more  (from  11  to  19)  are  sucked  up  from  their  lower 
position  at  D  to  an  upper  position  at  E.  Those  pieces  of 
the  partition  which  follow  on  the  right  (from  the  mark 
19  to  the  right)  simply  remain  each  in  that  position  in 
which  it  was  at  the  moment  D.  No  force  has  acted  on 
them  meanwhile. 


FBEQUENCY   OF   JERKS  307 

From  the  moment  E  to  the  moment  F  the  air  pressure 
increases  from  5]^  to  30,  that  is,  by  24^/2  units.  Accord- 
ingly, so  many  units  of  the  partition  are  pushed  down, — 
the  initial  ones,  that  is  those  near  the  windows,  first,  the 
others  soon  afterwards.  First  those  from  the  mark  zero 
to  the  mark  19  are  pushed  down,  then  those  from  the  mark 
24>4  to  the  mark  30. 

From  F  to  G  the  pressure  falls  30  units.  Thirty  units 
of  the  partition  are  sucked  up.  At  G  we  find  these  thirty 
units  therefore  in  exactly  the  same  position  in  which  we 
found  them  at  the  start,  at  A, 

Let  us  not  forget,  now,  that  this  graph  shows  us  only  in 
certain  general  outlines  what  goes  on  in  the  partition.  The 
finer  details  of  this  occurrence  have  been  sacrificed  to  the 
need  of  a  first  understanding  of  that  which  is  most  es- 
sential. 

Looking  down  the  "columns,"  so  to  speak,  of  the  last 
figure,  we  count  in  each  column  how  many  times  the  sen- 
sitive cells  of  that  part  of  the  partition  have  been  jerked 
down  and  up.  In  the  initial  section  we  count  3  such  jerks, 
in  a  following  section  2  jerks,  and  in  a  farther  section  of 
the  partition  only  one  jerk  in  the  time  unit  from  A  to  G. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  three  classes  of  excitations  take 
their  origin  from  the  ear  and  pass  thru  the  nervous  sys- 
tem in  those  directions  where  they  find  favorable  condi- 
tions of  resistance.  What  at  first  astonishes  us  is  the  fact 
that  not  only  the  excitations  "3"  and  "2,"  which  we  ex- 
pected to  find,  but  also  the  excitation  "1"  are  present.  This, 
however,  is  entirely  in  accordance  with  the  facts  if  we  study 
the  Other-One's  auditory  perceptions  sufficiently  in  detail. 
If  we  sound  two  tuning  forks,  the  Other-One  will  gen- 
erally tell  us,  provided  he  has  enough  training  to  answer 
our  specific  question,  that  he  hears  three  different  tones. 


308  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

But  what  is  most  important  is  the  fact  that  each  of  our 
tone  stimuH,  "3"  and  "2,"  produces  its  own  excitation.  If 
the  effect  of  the  sound  wave  had  been  confined  to  the  small 
area  of  the  partition  in  the  primitive  cavity,  if  it  had  not 
been  spread  over  the  partition  lengthened  within  the  tube, 
the  three  jerks  conspicuous  in  the  sound  wave  would  have 
resulted  in  a  single  corresponding  excitation;  and  that 
would  have  been  all.  Several  simultaneous  excitations  and 
several  simultaneously  determined  reactions,  like  the  dog's 
running  away  from  the  lion  and  toward  his  master,  would 
have  been  impossible  without  this  lengthening  oi  the  sen- 
sitive surface. 

It  will  probably  be  of  some  interest  even  to  the  student 
who  is  not  interested  in  the  special  problems  of  the  function 
of  the  sense  organs,  to  mention  here  a  few  of  the  secondary 
anatomical  features  which  have  resulted  from  the  con- 
tinued lengthening  of  the  tube  containing  the  sensitive  sur- 
lace.  First,  as  the  tube  lengthened,  it  coiled  up.  Some 
explain  this  as  due  to  a  saving  of  space.  But  it  is  hard  to 
see  why  the  tube  could  not,  on  that  account,  find  room  in 
the  thick  bone  of  the  base  of  the  skull  just  as  readily  if 
it  had  grown  along  a  straight  line.  It  is  a  much  more 
plausible  argument  that,  in  coiling  up,  the  sensitive  surface 
exposed  itself  to  stimulation  by  the  first  mentioned,  most 
primitive  method  more  efficiently  than  if  it  had  remained 
straight.  Thus  a  sound  wave  passing  thru  the  body  can 
act  on  some  part  of  the  "fur  lining"  no  matter  in  which 
direction  the  wave  proceeds  thru  the  three  dimensions  of 
space.  Thus  the  advantage  is  regained  which  was  im- 
paired when  the  "fur  lining,"  as  we  remember,  was  taken 
from  the  walls  of  the  cavity. 

A  second  anatomical   feature   which  easily  arouses  the 
student's  interest  is  the  fact  that  a  kind  of  skeleton,  look- 


PECULIAEITIES  OF  THE  AUDITORY  ORGAN  309 

ing  in  cross  section  like  two  pillars  falling  against  each 
other  and  forming  an  arch  between  the  sensitive  cells, 
was  introduced  when  the  tube  became  long.  In  the  birds, 
in  which  the  tube  is  not  yet  very  long,  these  pillars  are 
absent.  In  our  figure  of  a  cross  section  of  the  tube  in 
the  mammalian  auditory  organ  these  pillars  are  very  con- 
.spicuous.  It  is  clear  that,  when  the  tube  is  very  long,  the 
initial  sections  of  the  partition  near  the  windows  undergo 
especially  violent  pressure  changes.  Such  a  skeleton,  un- 
necessary in  the  birds,  becomes  then  desirable.  And  in 
the  initial  sections  it  ought  to  be  especially  stiflf.  So  it  is, 
for  in  the  initial  sections  the  pillars  form  a  more  acute 
angle  than  in  the  parts  of  the  partition  farther  removed 
from  the  windows. 

A  third  feature  worth  mentioning  even  in  this  brief 
discussion  is  the  membrane  which  is  stretched  at  a  slight 
distance  above  that  side  of  the  partition  on  which  the 
sensitive  cells  are  placed.  There  is,  of  course,  a  consider- 
able motion  of  fluid  unavoidably  also  lengthwise  in  the 
double  tube.  This  acts  by  friction  on  the  partition  and 
might  cause  damage.  On  the  side  of  the  partition  (the 
lower  side  in  the  figure)  where  there  are  no  sensitive 
cells,  no  damage  is  to  be  feared.  But  on  the  other  side 
special  protection  is  needed  and  given  by  the  rather  big 
membrane  which  in  the  figure  appears  above,  stretching 
from  wall  to  wall  of  the  tube.  In  a  sense,  then,  we  can 
give  the  name  of  "the  partition  of  the  tube"  to  everything 
between  this  upper  membrane  and  the  lower  surface  of 
the  partition  as  hitherto  spoken  of.  The  partition  in  this 
new  sense  is  then  a  kind  of  hollow  wall  carrying  in  its 
interior  the  delicate  hair  cells,  their  supports,  and  the  ends 
of  the  sensory  neurons. 


310 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 


n 
oo 


;a 


OS 


» 


aa  S3 

triH 
>   . 

'-'Eh 

is  I 

«o 

2h 


a" 


Let  us  once  more  state  the  four  different  methods  of 
functioning  of  the  auditory  organ,  beginning  with  the  most 
primitive  method  and  ending  with  the  most  developed  one. 


FOUR  METHODS  OF  FUNCTIONING  311 

But  let  us  keep  in  mind,  now,  that  all  these  methods  of 
functioning  are  possible  and  actually  occur  in  the  same 
auditory  organ,  the  highly  developed  anatomical  structure 
called  the  Other-One's  "ear" ;  that  the  possibility  and  ac- 
tual occurrence  of  the  most  highly  developed  functioning 
does  not  exclude,  in  the  very  same  ear,  the  possibility  and 
actual  simultaneous  occurrence  of  any  of  the  more  primi- 
tive forms  of  functioning. 

1.  The  Other-One's  ear  can  function  like  a  cavity  lined 
with  hair  cells  and  exposed  to  any  sound  wave  passing  in 
any  direction  thru  his  body. 

2.  The  Other-One's  ear  can  function  like  a  cavity  in 
which  the  hair  cells  are  placed  on  a  floating  partition,  there 
being  a  "window"  on  each  side  of  the  partition,  and  a 
tunnel  leading  the  sound  more  directly  to  one  window 
than  to  the  other. 

3.  The  Other-One's  ear  can  function  like  (2)  with  the 
difference  that  the  sound  waves  are  transported  by  means 
of  a  solid  connection  from  a  protective  "drum"  in  the 
tunnel  to  one  of  the  windows. 

4.  The  Other-One's  ear  can  function  either  like  (2) 
or  like  (3)  with  the  difference  that  the  up  or  down  motion 
produced  in  the  partition  is  farther  or  less  far  extended 
over  the  greatly  lengthened  cavity  and  partition,  according 
as  each  positive  or  negative  change  in  the  air  pressure  is 
more  or  less  intensive. 

To  the  extent  that  pathological  conditions  interfere  with 
any  of  these  forms  of  functioning,  the  Other-One  has  to 
rely,  and  as  a  rule  fortunately  still  can  rely,  on  the  others. 

We  stated  that  Nature  at  the  start  equipped  the  auditory 
organ  of  animals  with  hairs,  exposing  them  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  slightest  pressure  changes  in  the  medium 
surrounding  the  animal  would  effect  a  bending  of  these 
hairs.     It  has  been  shown  some  years  ago  by  Emile  ter 


312  PSYCHOLOGY    OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

Kuile  that  in  this  most  lately  developed  fourth  form  of 
functioning  of  the  organ  the  hairs  of  the  sensitive  cells 
are  bent  back  and  forth.  Our  diagram  shows  these  hairs 
indicated  only  by  four  short  lines  between  two  parallels. 
The  upper  parallel  represents  the  fine  brush-like  membrane 
previously  mentioned  as  touching  the  tips  of  the  hairs.  The 
lower  parallel  represents  the  surface  formed  by  the  sensi- 
tive cells  in  which  these  hairs  are  rooted.     The  sensitive 


HOW   THE   HAIKS   OF   THE   HAIR   CELLS  AR-E   BENT    IN   THE 

HUMAN    EAR. 

cells  themselves  are  not  drawn  in  this  diagram.  But  the 
"skeleton"  supporting  them,  that  is,  the  triangle  formed  by 
the  two  pillars,  is  shown,  having  its  vertex,  of  course,  in 
the  lower  one  of  the  two  parallels  spoken  of.  The  dia- 
gram shows  how  the  hairs  must  bend  when  the  two  par- 
allels slide  over  each  other  in  consequence  of  the  partition 
being  jerked  out  of  one  of  its  extreme  positions  into  the 
other.  It  seems  remarkable  that  in  spite  of  all  the  changes 
which  the  anatomy  of  the  auditory  organ  has  undergone 
in  evolution,  the  bending  of  the  hairs  still  seems  to  be 
the  most  essential  factor  in  stimulation. 

Having  obtained,  now,  an  elementary  understanding  of 
the  functioning  of  that  sense  organ  whose  main  purpose  is 
the  receiving  of  signals,  we  naturally  turn  in  the  next 
chapter  to  a  discussion  of  the  "vocal"  organ  by  means 
of   which  the  Other-One  ordinarily   transmits  his  signals. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Other-One's  Talking  Machinery. 

An  acoustic  signal  is  a  periodic  change  of  density  in  the 
air.  In  order  to  understand  clearly  the  Other-One's  signal- 
ing apparatus  we  must  first  of  all  impress  upon  ourselves 
the  fact  that  such  density  changes  in  the  air  can  be  pro- 
duced either  directly  in  the  air  itself,  by  friction  suffered  by 
a  stream  of  air,  or  indirectly  by  a  vibrating  solid  which 
beats  the  air  periodically.  Density  changes  of  the  latter 
origin  are  not  only  very  regular  (owing  to  the  regularity 
of  the  vibration  of  such  a  solid),  but  also  rather  strong. 
Density  changes  caused  directly  in  the  air  by  friction  (for 
example,  the  breathing  noise)  are  generally  both  weak  and 
irregular  in  a  physical  sense. 

But  both  kinds  of  density  changes  can  be  greatly 
strengthened  and  can  also,  if  they  were  before  irregular, 
aperiodic,  be  made  regular,  periodic,  by  the  mediation  of  an 
air  resonator.  An  air  resonator  is  nothing  but  a  volume  of 
air  almost  entirely  enclosed  within  a  solid  container,  but 
communicating  with  the  outer  air  thru  an  opening  in  the 
container.  The  smaller  the  enclosed  volume  of  air,  the 
greater  the  frequency  of  its  proper  density  changes,  or,  as 
we  say,  the  higher  the  tone.  And  the  larger  the  opening, 
the  higher  the  tone.  However,  the  size  of  the  opening  must 
have  a  certain  reasonable  relation  to  the  volume,  or  the 
resonance  will  be  very  weak. 

All  these  facts  mentioned  can  be  easily  illustrated  with 
ordinary  musical  instruments  of  the  wood-wind  type.  In 
a  flute  the  density  changes  in  the  air  are  caused  directly  by 

313 


314  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

the  friction  of  a  stream  of  air  blown  against  a  sharp  edge; 
and  the  air  volume  in  the  flute  resonates,  that  is,  makes  the 
density  changes  regular  and  strong.  In  an  oboe  or  clarinet 
a  reed  (that  is,  a  solid  body)  is  caused  to  vibrate  by  blow- 
ing against  it ;  and  again  the  air  volume  in  the  instrument 
resonates,  causing  the  density  changes  to  be  still  more 
regular  and  stronger  than  they  would  be  if  depending  mere- 
ly on  the  manner  of  the  vibration  of  the  reed. 

We  have  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter  that  animals 
are  equipped  with  a  class  of  reflexes  which  enable  them  to 
use  their  breathing  apparatus,  the  lungs,  also  as  a  blowing 
apparatus  for  causing  periodic  density  changes  of  high  fre- 
quency in  the  air.  The  muscles  serving  these  reflexes  are 
the  diaphragm  and  the  muscles  of  the  chest  acting  on  the 
ribs. 

The  blowing  apparatus  is  thus  comparatively  simple,  as  is 
to  be  expected.  The  friction  apparatus,  which  we  have 
to  discuss  next,  is  more  complex.  And  the  resonating  ap- 
paratus, which  will  be  discussed  last,  is  most  complex. 

Our  figure  shows  in  its  most  essential  features  the  pas- 
sages thru  which,  during  the  Other-One's  vocal  activity, 
the  air  has  to  take  its  path  in  or  out.  (There  are.  how- 
ever, but  few  languages  on  earth  in  which  sounds  for 
signaling  are  produced  by  drawing  the  air  in.)  If  the 
Other-One  does  not  anywhere  in  these  passages  thru  spe- 
cial muscular  action  obstruct  the  motion  of  the  air,  the 
friction  is  so  slight  that  no  sound  is  produced  which  de- 
serves to  be  called  a  speech  sound  (as  in  ordinary  breath- 
ing)- 

Obstruction  can  be  caused  easily  in  the  larynx  by  stretch- 
ing the  so-called  vocal  cords  so  that  they  leave  less  room 
between  them.  Obstruction  can.  secondly,  be  caused  in 
many  different  ways,  as  appears  clearly  from  the  figure,  by 
the  muscles  of  the  upper  lip,  the  lov.cr  lip,  the  lower  jaw, 


OBSTRUCTION  IN   LARYNX  OR  MOUTH 


315 


the  tongue,  and  the  soft  palate.  For  simplicity's  sake  we 
may  call  the  totality  of  all  these  latter  organs  "the  mouth." 
But  there  is  one  great  difference  between  causing  the 
necessary  friction  in  the  larynx  and  causing  it  anywhere 
in  the  mouth.  It  is  the  same  difference  which  exists  be- 
tween the  oboe  and  the  flute. 


THE  MOt'TH  AND  THB  LARYNX  FORMING  THE  HUMAN 

"OBOE." 

The  parts  constituting  the  mouth  are  not  easily  capable 
of  vibrating,  because  they  are  virtually  never,  normally, 
under  that  tension  which  is  physically  necessary  in  order 
that  a  solid  may  vibrate.  The  motion  of  the  air  may  be  ob- 
structed, for  example,  by  putting  the  lips  together.  But 
the  lips  do  not  then  vibrate.  The  bugler  may  force  them 
to  vibrate,  but  only  by  pressing  the  mouthpiece  of  his  bugle 
against  them  and  thus  giving  them  an  artificial  tension. 
Normally  their  tension  is  too  weak  for  vibration.  Or  the 
motion  of  the  air,  to  give  another  example,  may  be  ob- 
structed by  placing  the  tongue  against  the  upper  teeth  or 
against  the  hard  palate.  There  may  then  be  much  friction, 
but  neither  the  teeth  nor  the  palate  can  vibrate  under  such 


316  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHEE-ONB 

conditions.  And  if  the  tongue  should  vibrate,  it  does  it 
with  such  a  small  frequency  as  to  cause  no  sound  of  its 
own,  but  to  add  merely  some  roughness  to  a  sound  which 
originates  elsewhere,  as  "r"  and  "1."  Therefore  the  fric- 
tion produced  anywhere  in  the  mouth  is  comparable  to  the 
friction  in  blowing  a  flute.  There  is  no  solid  body  which 
is  blown  against  and  which  in  consequence  vibrates. 

But  when  the  cushions  of  which  the  vocal  cords  form  the 
most  advanced  edges  narrow  the  opening  in  the  larynx, 
they  do  that  thru  the  very  tension  of  the  vocal  cords.  The 
case  is  then  quite  similar  to  that  of  the  oboe.  There  the 
reed,  which  obstructs  the  air  motion,  vibrates  when  air  is 
forced  thru.  Here  the  stretched  vocal  cords  vibrate  when 
air  is  forced  thru. 

From  what  we  have  previously  said  it  is  clear,  then,  that 
whenever  the  air  is  obstructed  in  the  mouth,  the  resulting 
sound  is  relatively  weak;  and  whenever  the  air  is  ob- 
structed in  the  larynx,  the  resulting  sound  is  relatively 
strong.  The  sounds  of  the  first  class  are  therefore  called 
voiceless  sounds  and  those  of  the  second  class  voiced 
sounds.  In  more  popular  terminology,  the  production  of 
the  former  (voiceless)  sounds  may  be  called  whispering, 
that  of  the  latter  (voiced  sounds)  singing  or  ordinary  loud 
speech. 

The  existence  of  a  great  obstruction  in  the  mouth,  as  in 
pronouncing  "s,"  precludes  a  sufficiently  strong  fall  of  the 
air  pressure,  on  the  passage  from  below  the  vocal  cords  up 
to  above  the  vocal  cords,  to  bring  about  vibration  of  the 
cords.  But  if  the  air  is  only  moderately  obstructed  in  the 
mouth,  a  certain  amount  of  vibration  of  the  vocal  cords 
is  simultaneously  possible.  We  then  have  "voiced"  speech 
sounds  like  "z,  d,  b,  g,  v,  w."  With  a  greater  obstruction 
in  the  mouth  and  the  then  unavoidable  failure  of  the  vocal 
cords  to  vibrate,  these  sounds  become  the  "voiceless"  speech 
sounds  "s,  t,  p,  k,  f,  wh." 


VOICED  AND   VOICELESS  SOUNDS  317 

It  is  but  natural,  then,  that  in  whispering,  if  we  define 
this  as  voiceless  speech,  the  sounds  "z,  d,  b,  g,  v,  w"  are  im- 
possible. They  are  indistinguishable  from  "s,  t,  p,  k,  f,  wh." 
Ask  the  Other-One  to  whisper  strongly,  but  really  to  whis- 
per, "zeal"  and  "veal,"  and  they  will  sound  like  "seal"  and 
"feel."  However,  it  must  be  emphasized  here  as  nearly 
everywhere  in  phonetic  discussions,  that  all  distinctions  are 
relative,  that  there  are  intermediate  steps  between  the  ex- 
treme of  whispering  and  the  extreme  of  voiced  speech. 
In  the  so-called  stage-whisper,  for  example,  the  distinction 
is  possible. 

Of  course,  when  we  said  that  somewhere  the  passage  of 
the  air  must  be  obstructed  in  order  to  cause  "by  friction" 
a  sound,  we  did  not  wish  to  give  the  impression  that  this 
friction  was  one  perfectly  simple  physical  process  incapable 
of  variations.  The  friction  may  be  a  steady  process,  as  in 
pronouncing  "s"  or  "sh ;"  or  it  may  deserve  the  name, 
rather  than  that  of  friction,  of  an  explosion  or  sometimes 
the  reverse,  a  sudden  choking,  as  in  pronouncing  "k"  or 
"p"  in  the  beginning  or  end  of  a  syllable;  or  it  may  be 
something  between  explosion  and  plain  friction,  like  the  re- 
peated weak  explosions  of  "r"  or  "1,"  which,  on  account 
of  their  repetition,  we  do  not  recognize  as  explosions. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  sound  only  as  it 
results  exclusively  from  the  friction  which  is  caused  by 
obstructing  the  passage  of  the  air,  forcefully  expelled  from 
the  lungs, — with  or  without  the  aid  of  a  vibrating  solid 
body,  that  is,  the  vocal  cords.  We  have  not  yet  discussed 
the  factor  of  resonance. 

But  the  variations  of  resonance  are  that  very  factor 
which  makes  "articulated"  speech  what  it  is.  Without  the 
manifold  variations  of  resonance  the  Other-One  would  pos- 
sess virtually  only  (1)  friction  noises  (a  kind  of  whisper- 
ing, as  we  called  it,  but  not  "articulated"  whispering)  com- 


318  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

parable  to  the  noise  of  steam  escaping  with  more  or  less 
force  from  a  boiler  and  (2)  musical  tones  comparable  to  the 
song  of  birds.  And  he  would  use  the  one  or  the  other  ac- 
cording to  circumstances,  but  hardly  both  simultaneously. 

A  glance  at  our  figure  shows  how  easily  a  great  variety 
of  resonating  air  volumes  can  be  formed,  and — whar  's 
especially  important — not  only  a  variety  from  moment  to 
moment,  but  a  variety  of  several  air  volumes  at  the  same 
moment,  a  small  volume  here,  a  large  volume  there,  each 
having  its  proper  tone.  Thus  we  understand  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  lengthening  of  the  Other-One's  auditory  organ 
into  a  tube  which  we  discussed  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
whereby  different  sensitive  cells  are  enabled  at  the  same 
time  to  be  excited  in  different  excitations. 

The  tongue  (t,  in  the  figure)  can  be  pushed  forward  to- 
ward the  teeth  or  backward  toward  the  soft  palate  (sp). 
It  can  be  pushed  up  toward  the  hard  palate  (hp)  or  down, 
leaving  little  or  much  space  between  itself  and  the  palate. 
The  lower  jaw  can  be  lowered,  enlarging  in  any  desired 
manner  the  mouth  cavity  and  enlarging  also  the  opening 
between  the  teeth.  The  lips  can  be  arranged  so  that  the 
mouth  cavity  is  prolonged  forward.  The  lips  can  also  make 
the  opening  of  the  mouth  of  any  desired  size.  The  soft 
palate  can  be  pushed  backwards  in  order  to  close  the  com- 
munication between  the  upper  and  lower  pharynx  (uph 
and  Iph)  and  exclude  thus  completely  the  nasal  cavity 
(n)  from  acting  as  a  resonator.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
tongue  can  so  well  fill  the  mouth  cavity  that  the  pharynx 
and  the  nasal  cavity  alone  serve  as  resonators. 

When  the  Other-One  sings  like  a  bird,  that  is,  without 
pronouncing  at  the  same  time  words,  he   forms,  more  or 
less  skilfully,  one  large  resonating  cavity  of  all  those  cavi-. 
ties   at   his   service.     This   one   resonating  cavity   is   then 
merely  adjusted  in  accordance  with  the  frequency  of  the 


SONG   AND  SPEECH  319 

vibrations  of  the  vocal  cords  in  the  larynx  (in  front  of  the 
esophagus,  e,  in  the  figure).  But  in  speech  he  forms  numer- 
ous resonating  cavities  at  the  same  time  and  locates  the 
obstruction  (or  obstructions)  wherever  the  resulting  fric- 
tion will  be  near  enough  to  the  cavities  to  make  them  prop- 
erly resonate.  It  is  clear,  of  course,  that  thus  similar 
sounds  or  even  identical  sounds  (that  is,  compound  sounds 
consisting  of  the  same  components)  can  frequently  be  pro- 
duced by  more  arrangements  within  the  vocal  organs  than 
one.  The  larger  one  of  two  simultaneous  cavities  may  be 
located  here  and  the  smaller  one  there,  or  the  smaller  one 
here  and  the  larger  cavity  there.  The  total  sound  might 
be  about  the  same.  It  is  important  to  understand  this  in 
order  to  avoid  the  needless  differences  of  opinion  which 
arise  sometimes  in  phonetics  as  to  whether  a  certain  speech 
sound  must  be  produced  in  one  manner  or  in  another.  It 
might  be  produced  in  either  manner  equally  well. 

To  these  several  sounds  caused  by  friction  and  reso- 
nance of  the  air  cavities  may  then  be  added  or  may  not  be 
added  the  larynx  tone.  If  the  larynx  tone  is  not  added, 
we  speak  of  articulated  ("joined  together")  whispering. 
If  it  is  added,  but  is  not  very  strong  and  varies  much,  we 
hear  the  Other-One's  normal  loud  speech.  If  the  added 
larynx  tone  is  overstrong,  but  still  varies  much,  we  call 
it  shouting.  If  the  added  larynx  tone  is  very  strong,  but 
held  at  constant  pitch  (vibration  frequency)  for  a  little 
while,  to  assume  another  constant  pitch  for  a  little  while, 
and  another  constant  pitch,  we  hear  the  singer's  perform- 
ance, as  in  an  opera  or  whenever  the  Other-One  sings  a 
song. 

What,  now,  is  the  difference  between  consonants  and 
vowels?  This  is,  perhaps,  the  first  classification  we  learn 
in  our  earliest  school  life  to  make  of  different  speech 
sounds.      And  yet  it   is   a  rather   insignificant   and  almost 


320  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

superfluous  classification.  We  learn  that  vowels  are  those 
speech  sounds  which  may  form  a  syllable  (a  syllable  is  that 
group  of  sound  qualities  which  occurs  between  two  sound 
minimums  and  has  only  one  maximum)  while  occurring 
alone  and  unaccompanied  by  consonants,  and  that  con- 
sonants ("by-sounds"  in  the  sense  of  accompanying  sounds) 
are  those  sounds  which  never  form  a  syllable  while  occur- 
ring alone,  but  must  occur  "by"  a  vowel.  However,  it  is 
purely  accidental  that  we  do  not  in  the  English  language 
have,  for  example,  a  syllable  consisting  purely  of  the  voice- 
less sound  "sh."  There  are  other  languages  which  have 
such  syllables,  and  "sh"  would  then  have  to  be  called  a 
vowel.  This  shows  clearly  enough  the  scientific  irrelevancy 
of  the  distinction  between  English  consonants  and  vowels. 

Psychologically  interesting  are  all  those  cases  where  in 
speech  the  pronunciation  of  a  sound  is  modified  by  the 
occurrence  of  another  one  just  before  or  just  after.  It  is 
but  natural  that,  for  example,  the  first  syllable  should  be 
pronounced  differently  in  the  two  words  "do"  and  "doing," 
that  the  Other-One  should  in  the  latter  case  make  the  re- 
sonating cavities  for  the  two  syllables  succeeding  each  other 
as  much  alike  as  this  is  possible  without  risk  of  being  mis- 
understood. This  is  so  justifiable  an  economy  that  virtual- 
ly nobody  fails  to  develop  his  speech  habits  in  accordance 
with  it.  In  the  study  of  languages  we  discover  innumerable 
examples  of  speech  economy  which  have  become  so  con- 
spicuous that  they  have  found  expression  even  in  spelling. 

Lazy  people,  of  course,  will  economize  without  much  at- 
tention to  the  question  whether  the  Other-One's  under- 
standing becomes  impaired  thereby  or  not.  It  is  all  right  to 
say  "cupmsaucer"  if  the  Other-One's  native  language  is 
English  and  if  he  can  almost  guess  what  we  are  saying. 
But  if  he  is  a  foreigner  and  not  perfectly  accustomed  to 
English,  and  we  want  him  to  understand  us,  we  should 
rather  pronounce  "cup — and — saucer." 


ECONOMY  IN  SPEECH  321 

But  even  lazy  people  sometimes  get  excited  and  may  then 
expel  the  air  from  the  lungs  so  forcefully  that  a  mouth 
friction  sound  is  heard  in  a  word  which  does  not  possess  the 
sound,  but  which  word  the  excited  speaker  wishes  to  em- 
phasize, whereas  in  another  word  which  he  does  not  wish 
to  emphasize  he  fails  to  produce,  thru  his  laziness,  the  very 
friction  sound  which  rightly  belongs  there.  For  example: 
Barber — The  cholera  is  in  the  hair.  Customer — Then  you 
ought  to  be  careful  about  the  brushes  you  use.  Barber — I 
didn't  mean  the  air  of  the  ead,  but  the  hair  of  the  hatmos- 
phere. 

When  the  Other-One  is  excited  because  you  have  told 
him  that  you  are  going  to  punish  him,  and  he  asks  "Why?" 
he  will  probably  let  the  vowel  be  preceded  by  the  strong 
mouth  friction  sound  "wh." — But  if  you  ask  him  if  he 
wears  a  fur  coat  in  summer,  and  he  smilingly  replies  "Why, 
nobody  does  that,"  he  will  probably  pronounce  the  first 
sound  as  "w,"  with  very  little  air  friction  in  the  mouth. 

The  general  features  of  speech  in  relation  to  personality 
have  been  well  described  by  the  Danish  linguist  Jespersen 
in  the  following  brief  paragraphs : 

"Every  one  has  his  own  speech,  differing  from  every 
other  person's  speech.  This  is  true  with  respect  to  his 
vocabulary,  his  idioms,  his  syntax  and  his  grammar ;  but 
also  with  respect  to  his  pronunciation.  When  we  recognize 
a  person  by  his  'voice,'  that  last  term  is  not  taken  in  the 
narrower  meaning  of  'larynx  sound,'  but  in  the  broader 
meaning  of  his  pronunciation  as  depending  also  on  his  pal- 
ate, tongue,  teeth,  lips,  the  elasticity  of  his  cheeks,  and 
even  the  muscular  equipment  of  his  breathing  apparatus. 

"He  who  dissimulates  his  speech,  pushes  forward  his 
lips,  lowers  his  jaw,  flattens  his  tongue,  and  so  forth. 

"Very  characteristic  for  a  person's  speech  is  also  his 
tempo  of  speaking  and  the  greater  or  lesser  precision  in 


322  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE   OTHEK-O^'E 

:he  execution  of  the  movements  of  his  vocal  organs,  on 
which  the  clarity,  comprehensibility  and  beauty — or  the  op- 
posite— of  his  speech  depend. 

"Tho  every  one  has  his  individual  speech,  that  speech 
varies  from  time  to  time  according  to  the  situations  in 
which  he  finds  himself,  just  as  his  facial  expression  changes 
from  time  to  time. 

"In  general  it  can  be  said  that  those  who  speak  a  com- 
mon language  have  something  common  in  their  pronuncia- 
tion. Consequently  it  is  sometimes  possible,  when  one  hears 
spoken  words  from  such  a  distance  that  the  separate  words 
are  not  recognizable,  to  tell  nevertheless  what  language  it 
is. 

"Thus,  too,  it  is  frequently  possible  to  tell  of  what  coun- 
try or  part  of  a  country  a  person  is  a  native,  even  tho  he 
speaks  a  foreign  language,  since  he  may  not  have  freed 
himself  from  the  characteristic  peculiarities  of  his  native 
tongue,  but  may  unintentionally  use  them  in  the  other  lan- 
guage, speaking — as  the  popular  phrase  goes — with  a  'for- 
eign accent.'  In  reality  this  is  not  alone  a  matter  of  ac- 
centuation, or  perhaps  least  of  all  a  matter  of  accentuation, 
but  rather  a  matter  of  moving  his  speech  organs  in  the  old 
accustomed  way. 

"There  is  a  kind  of  harmony  among  the  motions  of  the 
vocal  organs  producing  the  several  sounds  of  a  particular 
language.  For  example,  that  language  which  pronounces 
*t'  with  the  tip  of  the  tongue  far  back  in  the  mouth,  most 
likely  pronounces  also  'd'  and  'n'  with  the  tongue  thus 
withdrawn.  And  if  'b'  is  strongly  voiced,  one  may  be  al- 
most sure  that  'd'  and  'g'  are  also  strongly  voiced.  Thus, 
in  certain  cases,  one  may  learn  to  imitate  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  a  foreign  language  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  dis- 
tinction by  merely  flattening  quite  generally  the  tongue,  or 
pushing  it  forward  or  withdrawing  it,  by  retarding  all  lip 
movements,  and  so  forth. 


INDIVIDUAL   AND   NATIONAL  SPEECH  323 

"In  this  sense  it  may  be  asserted  that  each  language  has 
its  'base  of  operations'  in  a  particular  region  of  the  mouth, 
or  that  it  has  its  particular  'pose'  of  the  mouth  organs. 
And  just  as  the  pronunciation  of  each  individual  represents 
and  expresses  the  peculiarities  of  his  personality,  so  the 
'mouth  pose'  of  each  language  has  a  definite  relation  to  the 
national  character.  Nevertheless,  no  more  than  such  a 
national  character  is  the  'mouth  pose'  of  a  language  easily 
and  clearly  describable  in  terms  of  scientific  value." 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  a  child  learns  the  language 
of  his  parents  "by  imitation."  It  is  more  correct  to  say 
that  he  learns  it  by  imitative  (reflex  as  well  as  habitual) 
actions. 

According  to  the  usage  of  language  any  action  deserves 
to  be  called  imitative  (or  "an  imitation")  which  repeats 
the  stimulus,  or  at  lea«t  produces  something  very  much  like 
that  stimulus  which  gave  rise  to  this  action. 

We  have  agreed  in  this  book  to  mean  by  a  reflex  or  by 
an  instinctive  action  about  the  same  thing,  that  is,  the  func- 
tioning of  one  definite  nervous  path  of  the  "short"  and  in- 
herited variety,  a  path  which  serves  to  place  a  perfectly 
definite  motor  point  at  the  disposal  of  a  perfectly  definite 
sensory  point.  The  motor  "point"  may  be  a  "group"  of 
muscles,  and  the  sensory  "point"  may  be  a  "group"  of  sen- 
sitive cells,  and  then  we  should  prefer  the  phrase  "instinc- 
tive action"  to  the  word  "reflex."  But  this  distinction  re- 
ferring to  complexity  or  simplicity  is  a  minor  matter  and 
really  does  not  concern  us  at  this  moment. 

But  while  the  functioning  of  ■  a  definite  nervous  path 
(that  is,  a  reflex  or  instinctive  action)  can  be  called  a 
"right-sided"  action,  if  it  occurs  on  the  right  side,  or  an 
"imitative"  action,  if  it  repeats  the  stimulus,  never  can  the 
abstract  noun  "right-sidedness"  or  the  abstract  noun  "im- 
itation" be  called  a  reflex  or  instinctive  action.     An  action 


324  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

is  something  concrete.  Its  functional  basis  in  the  nervous 
system  is  Hkewise  something  concrete.  An  abstraction  can 
be  used  as  the  name  of  a  concrete  thing,  but  never  can  an 
abstraction  be  spoken  of  under  the  term  standing  for  some- 
thing concrete, — unless  we  are  tired  of  logic  and  try  our 
luck  by  playing  with  intentionally  introduced  confusions. 
As  we  said  in  a  previous  chapter  that  "right-sidedness  is 
not  in  itself  a  reflex,  but  a  peculiarity  of  some  reflexes," 
so  we  must  say  here  that  imitativeness  is  not  in  itself  a  re- 
flex, but  a  peculiarity  of  certain  reflexes.  Saying  that  im- 
itation is  an  instinctive  action  would  be  like  saying  "crea- 
tion is  a  fish"  because  a  codfish  is  a  creation. 

If  we  wish  to  express  ourselves  clearly,  we  shall  be  the 
clearer,  the  more  frequently  we  speak  concretely  of  this  and 
of  that  special  "imitative  action"  (which  may  be  native  or 
acquired)  and  the  less  frequently  we  speak  generalizingly 
of  "imitation."  There  is  absolutely  nothing  in  the  sub- 
stances or  the  functions  of  the  nervous  system  which  can 
in  any  way  be  said  to  be  correlative  with  the  generalization 
(or  abstraction)   "imitation." 

Since  speech  imitating  actions  have  led  us  to  this  discus- 
sion, we  should,  in  order  to  make  the  matter  still  clearer, 
ask  what  kinds  of  imitative  actions  other  than  speech  im- 
itating actions  we  find  in  the  Other-One's  life.  In  speech 
the  Other-One  reacts  to  sound  and  produces  sound.  This 
is  auditory  imitation. 

If  a  smell  causes  the  Other-One  to  act  so  that  a  similar 
smell  results,  this  is  olfactory  imitation.  He  does  that, 
perhaps,  as  a  perfumer's  apprentice,  journeyman  or  mas- 
ter perfumer.  Fortunately  nobody  has  given  vent  to  his 
enthusiasm  for  the  abstract  terms  "instinct"  and  "imita- 
tion" far  enough  to  explain  the  perfumer's  actions  as  due 
to  his  "instinct  of  imitation." 


ARE  THERE  IMITATm:  INSTINCTS?  325 

If  the  Other-One  reacts  to  a  taste  so  that  a  similar  taste 
results,  that  is  gustatory  imitation.  It  is  a  good  guess,  in 
that  case,  that  his  vocation  is  that  of  a  cook. 

If  the  Other-One  reacts  to  a  kinesthetic  excitation  in 
such  a  manner  that  he  reproduces  the  kinesthetic  excita- 
tion, that  then  is  kinesthetic  imitation.  Very  Hkely  his 
vocation  is  that  of  a  circus  athlete. 

It  is  perfectly  clear  in  the  last  as  in  the  preceding  cases 
that  the  imitation  results  from  having  obtained  the  knowl- 
edge that  imitative  actions  are  often  useful,  are  often  the 
basis  of  success, — success  in  a  business,  in  a  trade,  in  a 
skilful  athletic  performance,  in  what  not.  Nobody  calls 
such  a  knowledge  an  instinct. 

Nobody  imitates  a  smell  instinctively.  Does  anybody  im- 
itate a  kinesthetic  excitation  instinctively? 

In  an  earlier  chapter  we  have  already  had  occasion  to 
mention  that  many  special  circular  reactions  are  inherited 
and  may  usually  result  from  the  kinesthetic  excitation,  re- 
sulting from  one  action,  causing  another  action.  If  this 
kinesthetic  excitation  causes  the  same  action  from  which 
it  resulted,  we  have  kinesthetic  imitation.  Does  anybody 
inherit  any  kinesthetic  imitative  action? 

One  might  think  that  the  inheritance  of  kinesthetic  im- 
itative actions  is  almost  self-evident  from  the  fact  that  the 
sensory  neurons  of  muscles  and  the  motor  neurons  of  the 
same  muscles  naturally  run  together  in  a  single  bundle,  a 
nerve.  But  that  is  as  accidental  as  running  water  pipes, 
gas  pipes,  sewer  pipes,  electric  wires,  and  so  forth  to- 
gether in  the  same  tunnel  under  a  street  or  under  a  river. 
Within  the  central  nervous  system  they  separate  and  do 
not  necessarily  form  "short  paths."  They  form  "reflex 
arches"  only  where  the  functional  needs  of  the  organism  in 
evolution  unite  them,  as  in  the  case  of  all  other  sensory  and 
motor  neurons. 


326  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE   OTHER-0]S'E 

As  a  matter  of  fact  there  seems  to  be  very  little  inherited 
kinesthetic  imitation ;  maybe  no  more  than  olfactory  and 
gustatory  imitation,  that  is,  none  at  all.  We  remember  the 
case  of  the  child  learning  to  pile  up  blocks.  There  is  im- 
itation in  so  far  as  the  child  seems  to  imitate  a  model  (a 
block  standing)  by  creating  a  thing  like  it,  only  bigger 
(one  block  upon  another).  But  the  stimulation  is  visual, 
not  kinesthetic.  And  the  imitation  is  at  the  start  purely 
accidental,  since  the  efTective  reflex,  as  we  remember,  is 
not  in  that  case  an  imitative  reflex,  but  is  simply  the  visual 
localizing  reflex.  The  child,  with  his  hand  already  grasping 
a  block,  localizes  another  block  by  sight,  and  then  drops 
his  block  on  that  location. 

Indeed,  if  a  considerable  amount  of  kinesthetic  imitation 
were  inherited,  it  would  greatly  retard  the  acquisition  of 
useful  habits  of  reaction.  For  example,  the  child,  instead 
of  learning  how  to  build  a  house  of  blocks,  would  continue, 
thru  the  influence  of  such  imitative  actions,  to  move  his 
hands  up  and  down  in  the  same  manner  without  being  in- 
fluenced by  the  fact  that  blocks  other  than  the  one  in  his 
hand  are  lying  about.  Kinesthetic  imitative  actions,  if  in- 
herited, would  reduce  man's  biological  significance  in  the 
world  to  something  like  that  of  mechanical  toys  in  a  child's 
world,  capable  only  of  performing  the  same  jump  in  end- 
less repetition. 

Does  anybody  imitate  a  visual  stimulation  instinctively? 
There  seems  to  be  little  evidence  of  special  inherited  re- 
flexes imitating  visual  stimulations.  Neither  do  the  earli- 
est learned  movements  seem  to  depend  on  visual  imitation 
nor  do  the  earliest  imitative  movements  seem  to  be  of  the 
inherited  type.  The  baby  learns  to  creep,  but— not  by  im- 
itation. He  learns  to  stand  up,  but — not  by  imitation.  He 
learns  to  walk,  but — not  by  imitation. 


AUDITORY  IMITATION  327 

It  is  only  after  he  has  acquired  these  skilful  movements 
of  his  hands  and  feet,  that  visual  imitative  actions  become 
conspicuous.  Then  only  we  observe  that  the  little  child, 
already  able  to  walk,  joins  us  when  we  are  standing  with 
our  back  against  the  wall  and  takes  his  place  at  our  side, 
leaning  his  back  likewise  against  the  wall.  Then  only,  after 
a  year  of  experience  in  hand  movements  without  any  visual 
imitative  actions  whatsoever,  does  he  begin  to  wave  his 
hands  in  imitation  of  ours,  to  put  on  his  hat  when  we  put 
our  hat  on.  Then  he  places  an  open  book  on  the  music 
stand  of  the  piano  before  he  strikes  the  keys  with  his  little 
fingers,  because  he  has  seen  us  open  our  music  before 
striking  the  keys  with  our  fingers.  In  all  these  early  im- 
itative actions  there  is  no  more  evidence  of  heredity  being 
especially  responsible  for  the  imitativeness  than  there  is  in 
the  actions  of  the  perfumer.  As  the  smell  imitating  per- 
fumer may  nevertheless  fail  in  his  business  (if  we  regard 
such  failure  as  some  evidence  against  the  existence  of  re- 
flexes),  so  the  sight  imitating  child  may  fail  in  his  busi- 
ness, in  playing  the  piano,  for  example,  in  spite  of  his 
wonderful  imitation.  Summing  up,  then :  there  is  scarcely 
any  inherited  visual  imitation. 

That  leaves  us  still  more  interested  in  the  question  how 
much  auditory  imitation  the  Other-One  has  inherited.  There 
is  this  to  be  said,  first,  that  without  imitating  sounds,  the 
Other-One  would  surely  fail  in  his  business  of  living  a 
human  life.  Auditory  imitation  is  so  essential  that  we  al- 
most expect  Nature  to  have  made  some  provision  for  it  by 
equipping  the  Other-One  with  special  reflexes.  The  sound 
producing  reflexes  belong,  we  have  said,  to  the  signaling 
reflexes.  Nature  has  equipped  animals  also  with  reflexes 
of  responding  to  signals ;  but  the  responses  to  signals  are 
not  necessarily  imitative  actions,  as  we  have  seen  in  many 
examples.     Generally  the  reflex  response  to  a  signal  is  not 


328  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

an  imitative  action.  But  it  seems  that  to  a  certain  extent 
Nature  has  equipped  the  Other-One  with  reflex  responses 
to  auditory  signals  which  repeat  with  some  accuracy  the 
auditory  stimulation. 

What  is  perhaps  most  remarkable  about  auditory  imita- 
tion is  the  fact  that  it  appears  earlier  than  all  other  (no 
matter  what  their  origin)  imitations;  and  that  it  grows 
weaker  as  the  individual  grows  older,  whereas  all  other 
imitations  seem  to  grow  stronger  with  advancing  age.  Audi- 
tory imitation  begins  with  imitative  reflexes,  and  hardly 
develops  into  imitative  habits  (altho  it  develops  into  defi- 
nite speech  habits)  but  rather  dies  out.  All  other  imita- 
tions (think  of  making  a  fist  before  your  enemy)  develop 
from  various  non-imitating  reflexes  accidentally  as  imita- 
tive habits  and  grow  stronger  and  stronger  because  the  im- 
itativeness  is  found  to  serve  a  purpose.  Auditory  imita- 
tiveness  has  its  maximum  during  the  second  year  of  life. 
Visual  imitativeness  is  very  conspicuous  only  about  a  year 
later  and  perhaps  does  not  reach  a  maximum  until  old 
age. 

The  infant  imitates  reflexly  the  speech  sounds  which  are 
produced  by  others  in  his  presence  or  by  himself.  The 
eight  or  ten  year  old  child  has  almost  ceased  to  imitate 
speech  sounds.  How  slight  the  tendency  to  imitate  speech 
has  become  in  grown  people,  all  those  know  from  experi- 
ence, to  their  regret,  who  have  ever  learned  or  taught  a 
foreign  language.  Grown  people  will  do  a  hundred  other 
things  rather  that  repeat  over  and  over  again  a  phrase  just 
heard  as  small  children  do, — the  secret  of  children's  rapid 
success.  It  is  quite  natural,  however,  that  auditory  imita- 
tion should  be  found  so  strong  during  the  second  and  even 
a  few  of  the  following  years  and  so  weak  later.  The  child 
must  learn  to  speak  early  in  life.  And  he  learns  by  im- 
itating.   When  this  learning  of  speech  is  once  accomplished, 


AUDITORY  IMITATION  329 

imitative  actions  are  no  longer  necessary.  Aside  from  learn- 
ing speech  in  early  childhood,  auditory  imitative  actions 
have  no  biological  value  of  their  own. 

With  visual  imitation  the  case  is  quite  different.  It  is 
true  that  all  thru  life  a  good  many  skilful  movements  are 
learned  by  visual  (tho  not  reflex)  imitative  actions.  How- 
ever, the  visual  imitative  action  itself,  aside  from  all  learn- 
ing, has  an  enormous  biological  value  all  thru  life,  in  old 
age  no  less  than  in  middle  age  and  infancy.  When  we  see 
a  crowd  gather  in  the  street,  we  immediately  (by  habit) 
run  to  the  spot  ourselves, — not  because  we  still  have  to 
learn  how  to  run  to  a  point  seen,  but  because  we  have  dis- 
covered that  it  is  of  immense  value  for  our  individual  and 
our  social  life  interests  to  do  at  any  time  as  we  see  other 
people  do,  exceptions  notwithstanding. 

Summing  up,  then,  we  may  say  that  auditory  imitative 
actions  are  virtually  the  only  class  of  imitative  reactions 
which  are  inherited  and  for  whose  inheritance  there  is  some 
need;  that  even  here  one  must  not  have  an  exaggerated 
idea  of  the  exactness  of  the  imitation  resulting  from  the 
reflex  equipment,  since  the  reflex  amounts  to  hardly  more 
than  responding  to  the  signaling  reflex  of  another  person 
by  a  rather  vague  signaling  reflex  of  one's  own,  producing 
varying  sounds  perhaps  at  random  more  frequently  than 
imitatingly  (as  a  dog  responds  to  another's  barking  by  its 
own  barking,  but  only  by  chance  imitatingly)  ;  and  that 
these  auditory  imitative  reflexes  become  so  completely  re- 
placed by  sound  producing  habits  that  after  ten  years  virtu- 
ally nothing  is  left  of  the  original  value  and  strength  of 
these  imitative  reflexes. 

What  we  have  said  in  an  earlier  chapter  about  "serial 
activity"  as  a  special  kind  of  concerted  action  finds  its  most 
important  illustration  in  speech.  All  speech  is  concerted 
action,  and  among  the  various  kinds  of  concertedness  the 


330  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

particular  sequence  of  the  sounds  is  obviously  of  especially 
great  importance.  Get  ready  to  say  "ga"  but  stop  just  be- 
fore the  "g"  explosion.  Then  do  the  same  for  the  syllable 
"goo."  You  notice  a  great  difference  of  position  of  the 
mouth  organs  and  of  tension  of  the  various  muscles  altho 
the  first  sound  is  supposed  to  be  the  same.  The  muscles 
are  clearly  innervated  and  ready  at  once  to  produce  both 
sounds,  consonant  and  vowel.  Which  sound  precedes  in 
actual  production  seems  to  depend,  as  in  our  discussion  of 
serial  activity  in  a  previous  chapter,  on  the  relative  inten- 
sity of  the  nervous  flux  going  to  the  one  and  the  other 
group  of  muscles. 

It  is  possible — indeed  probable — that  in  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  such  words  as  "god"  and  "dog"  there  is  no  differ- 
ence at  all  in  the  temporal  order  of  the  nervous  activities 
involved,  but  a  mere  distribution  dift'erence  of  the  resis- 
tances of  the  nervous  branches  serving  simultaneously  as 
conductors,  to  the  effect  that,  in  the  one  case,  the  muscular 
"g"  tension  is  stronger  than,  and  thus  becomes  outwardly 
effective  before,  the  "d"  tension,  and  in  the  other  case  the 
reverse, — the  "o"  tension  being  of  intermediate  intensity  in 
either  case.  This  condition  of  relative  resistances  in  each 
special  case  is,  of  course,  habit  in  the  particular  language, 
and  not  inherited. 

But  naturally,  the  statement  of  the  last  two  paragraphs 
does  not  deny  that  kinesthetic  excitations  may  also  play  a 
certain  role  in  bringing  about  particular  sound  sequences. 
Kinesthetic  excitations  are  especially  likely  to  be  of  an  im- 
portant service  in  determining  the  proper  sequence  of  the 
sounds  in  very  long  words  and  whole  phrases  and  sen- 
tences. The  greater  the  temporal  complexity  of  the  sound, 
the  less  self-sufficient  for  the  temporal  order  can  be  the 
manner  of  distribution  of  a  nervous  flux  having  a  single 
source. 


SIGNALING  AND  LOCALIZING  331 

Before  leaving  speech  the  peculiar  relation  between  the 
localizing  and  the  sound  signaling  reflexes  should  be  point- 
ed out.  In  discussing  the  localizing  reflex  we  mentioned 
that  the  "most  movable"  part  of  the  body  in  each  case  is  the 
one  which  performs  the  localizing  movement.  Usually  this 
is,  of  course,  an  arm.  During  the  second  half  of  the  first 
year  this  reflex  begins  to  assume  the  particular  form  in 
which  not  only  the  arm  is  stretched  out  in  the  service  of 
the  localizing  reflex,  but  the  index  finger  too  (but  not  the 
other  fingers).  Now.  this  is  about  the  same  time  when  the 
first  articulated  sounds  (usual  guttural  and  dental — ga  and 
da)  are  reflexly  produced  by  the  baby.  But  the  act  of 
stretching  the  index  finger,  that  is,  pointing,  is  accompanied 
by  a  dental  rather  than  a  guttural  sound — the  baby  point- 
ing and  saying  "dadada." 

We  recall  here  the  interesting  fact  that  in  all  Germanic 
languages  the  demonstrative  pronouns  begin  with  a  dental 
sound.  This  does  not  seem  to  be  altogether  fortuitous. 
Try  yourself  to  accompany  a  pointing  (localizing)  move- 
ment by  a  dental  or  a  guttural  sound.  The  latter  seems 
less  natural,  less  easy. 

The  explanation  is  probably  a  mere  subdivision  of  the 
explanation  of  a  more  general  fact, — the  fact  that  gestures, 
especially  those  of  the  right  hand,  are  likely  to  accompany 
speech,  in  adults  as  well  as  in  the  young. 

For  nearly  a  century  it  has  been  known  that  the  left 
hemisphere  of  the  normal  human  brain  functions  in  cer- 
tain cases  in  preference  to  the  right  hemisphere.  The  con- 
nections of  the  left  hemisphere  with  the  muscles  of  the 
right  half  of  the  body  and  also  with  all  the  speech  organs 
are  closer  than  those  of  the  right  hemisphere.  A  nervous 
current,  therefore,  which  takes  mainly  the  road  to  the 
speech  organs  and  partly  also  to  other  muscles,  finds  less 
resistance  to  the  muscles  of  the  right  arm  than  toward  the 


332  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

muscles  of  the  left  arm.  In  order  to  go  to  the  left  arm. 
it  first  has  to  go  from  the  left  to  the  other  hemisphere. 
Thus  its  path  becomes  lengthened  and  of  increased  resis- 
tance. 

It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  gestures  accompanying 
speech  must  be  gestures  of  the  right  rather  than  of  the  left 
arm. 

The  case  of  the  dental  or  the  guttural  sound  fitting  better 
together  with  the  pointing  movement,  seems  to  be  capable 
of  a  similar  explanation.  A  sound  which  is  produced  by 
friction  in  the  front  part  of  the  mouth  seems  to  depend 
within  the  nerve  centers  on  neurons  belonging  to  and  being 
found  among  that  group  of  neurons  which  serves  the  ex- 
tremities of  the  body,  like  the  pointing  finger.  The  muscles 
of  the  throat,  belonging  to  a  different,  an  internal  group  of 
muscles,  are  quite  likely  to  be  served  within  the  nerve  cen- 
ters chiefly  by  neurons  which  belong  to  and  are  found 
among  groups  of  neurons  which  do  not  serve  frequently 
the  extremities  of  the  body,  like  the  pointing  finger.  A 
nervous  current  is,  then,  more  likely  to  call  forth  both  a 
dental  sound  and  the  pointing  of  the  index  finger  than  a 
guttural  sound  and  the  pointing  of  the  index  finger.  That 
is,  this  nervous  current,  when  we  measure  the  resistance 
starting  from  a  certain  nerve  center,  is  found  to  travel  over 
a  longer  and  therefore  more  resistant  path  in  the  direction 
of  the  muscles  back  in  the  mouth  than  in  the  direction  of 
the  muscles  in  the  front  part  of  the  mouth. 

Why  movements  of  the  speech  organs  are  likely  to  be 
accompanied  by  gestures  at  all,  of  any  kind,  is  a  question 
which  we  shall  hardly  raise  after  having  emphasized  thru- 
out  this  book  that  every  nervous  current,  even  when  coming 
from  a  single  source,  is  widely  distributed  thru  the  nerv- 
ous system,  and  that  any  main  activity  is  likely  to  be  ac- 
companied by  secondary — and  generally,  by  the  spectator, 


ACCENT  AND  GESTURE  333 

overlooked — activities.  But  the  question  may  still  be  worth 
raising  in  this  connection  why  some  nationalities  gesticulate 
more  than  others. 

Some  languages,  especially  the  English,  habitually  put  an 
enormous  vigor  into  the  enunciation  of  one  definite  sound 
of  each  word  or  sentence.  The  English  language,  that  is, 
is  a  strongly  accented  language.  According  to  the  law  of 
nervous  deflection  we  expect,  then,  that  the  strong  nervous 
flux  leading  to  the  enunciation  of  the  accented  sound  should 
interfere  more  or  less  with  the  execution  of  such  secondary 
actions  as  hand  gestures.  This  is  a  plausible  explanation 
of  the  absence,  or  at  least  remarkable  infrequency,  of 
gesticulation  in  speakers  using  the  English  language.  In 
the  French  language,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  ac- 
cent worth  mentioning.  The  reflex  gestures  of  the  speaker 
are  therefore  fully  preserved.  Accent  in  speech  is  thus  a 
substitute  for  gesture. 

This  explanation  seems  more  generally  applicable  than 
the  popular  one  assuming  racial  differences  of  temperament 
as  the  exclusive  cause  of  the  difference  in  question.  May- 
be there  are  some  such  racial  differences.  But  taking  into 
consideration  the  origin  of  the  two  peoples,  such  a  differ- 
ence of  "temperament"  would  remain  ethnologically  rather 
mysterious. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Rhythm  :   Motions  Grouped  and  Thus  Repeated. 

Who  has  not  had  many  experiences  Hke  the  following: 
You  are  sitting  at  the  open  window  thru  which  the  regular- 
ly occurring  puffs  of  a  distant  steam  engine  reach  your  ear. 
You  see  the  Other-One  sitting  in  another  part  of  the  same 
room.  Suddenly  you  observe  that  he  beats  the  time  of  the 
engine  puffs,  tapping  with  his  finger  on  the  table,  or  may- 
be with  his  foot  on  the  floor.  But  that  is  not  all.  Indeed, 
that  would  not  be  at  all  remarkable.  Why  should  not  each 
of  many  regularly  repeated  auditory  stimuli  call  forth  an 
habitual  motion,  regularly  repeated,  of  the  Other-One's 
limb  ? 

But  you  observe  that  the  Other-One's  tapping  movements 
are  not  all  equal.  They  seem  to  consist  of  groups  of  six, 
or  of  groups  of  three,  according  as  you  make  finer  or  less 
fine  distinctions. 

One  of  the  six  strokes  appears  to  be  especially  vigorous 
and  also  to  occupy  a  little  more  time  than  each  of  the  other 
Jive  strokes.  It  is  executed  more  from  the  shoulder  joint 
than  the  others.  The  two  strokes  following  are  executed 
with  a  much  weaker  movement  of  the  hand.  In  them  the 
upper  arm  at  the  shoulder  joint  takes  hardly  any  part.  The 
motion  occurs  from  the  elbow  joint  rather,  or  even  merely 
from  the  wrist.  The  total  time  occupied  by  these  two 
strokes  is  slightly  less  what  you  would  expect, — slightly  less 
than  double  the  time  of  that  vigorous  stroke.  That  is, 
however,  natural,  since  a  long  pendulum  generally  has  a 
longer   period   than   a   short   pendulum,   and   the   vigorous 

334 


EHYTHM  oo5 


stroke  is  a  sort  of  pendulum  motion  of  the  whole  arm,  the 
weaker  strokes  only  of  the  lower  part  of  the  arm. 

In  our  example,  the  fourth  stroke  (the  first  of  the  second 
group,  if  we  prefer)  is  comparable  to  the  first  altho  pos- 
sibly it  has  the  characters  of  vigor  and  length  in  a  less  pro- 
nounced degree.  The  fifth  and  sixth  are  comparable  to  the 
second  and  third. 

If  you  recognize  a  difference  between  the  first  and  the 
fourth  stroke,  you  call  what  you  observe  a  perception  on 
the  part  of  the  Other-One  of  a  six-stroke  rhythm.  If  you 
fail  to  recognize  this  difference,  you  call  it  a  perception  of  a 
three-stroke  rhythm.     But  what  do  you  mean  by  rhythm? 

So  much  is  clear  that  you  do  not  mean  by  "rhythm,"  in 
the  particular  sense  in  which  you  use  this  term  here,  merely 
that  the  Other-One  does  something  repeatedly.  If  that 
were  the  case,  you  could  include  the  Other-One's  heart  beat 
in  a  discussion  of  "rhythm."  But  then  the  very  reason  for 
devoting  to  rhythm  a  special  chapter  of  a  psychological 
text-book  would  have  disappeared.  Then,  indeed,  you 
would  vise  the  term  "rhythm"  merely  as  an  (absolutely 
superfluous)  synonym  of  the  term  for  regularly  repeated 
events  on  which  mathematical  science  has  long  agreed,  that 
is,  the  term  "periodicity." 

We  mean  here  by  "rhythm"  that  the  Other-One  groups 
his  motions  by  putting  a  special  vigor,  length,  or  perhaps 
still  another  property,  every  now  and  then,  regularly,  into 
one  of  these  repeated  motions.  It  is  not  really  essential 
either  that  these  motions  are  performed  in  succession  by 
different  muscles,  or  even  different  limbs,  or  exactly  the 
same  limb,  the  same  muscle.  You  might  observe  that  the 
engine  puffs  stimulate  the  Other-One  to  tap  with  one 
finger,  using  for  each  motion  exactly  the  same  muscles,  that 
is,  neither  more  nor  fewer  nor  other  muscles,  merely  a  more 
vigorous  contraction  for  the  "accented"  stroke  of  the  group 
of  strokes.     That  is  one  of  the  extremes. 


336  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

Or  you  might  observe  that  the  engine  puffs  stimulate  the 
Other-One,  while  he  is  standing,  to  raise  his  whole  left 
leg  and  let  it  fall  heavily  upon  the  floor,  and  to  tap  then 
gently  once  with  the  index  finger  of  his  right  hand  and 
once  with  the  index  finger  of  his  left  upon  the  table.  That 
is  another  extreme  in  the  muscular  activity.  And  there 
are  also  extremes  in  the  stimulation  as  we  shall  see  pres- 
ently. 

When  instead  of  the  regularly  repeated,  but  unaccented 
engine  puffs  the  sounds  of  an  orchestra  playing  a  waltz 
are  the  effective  stimulation  in  the  case,  that  also  is  a  kind 
of  extreme  in  so  far  as  the  stimulating  orchestra  marks 
the  accents.  On  the  other  hand,  you  may  observe  that  the 
Other-One  engages  in  the  same  kind  of  remarkable  activity 
when  there  is  absolutely  no  accentuation  or  grouping  or 
even  repetition  in  the  stimulation.  For  example,  the  Other- 
One  may  be  standing  at  the  window  and  looking  out  while 
a  beautiful  young  lady,  his  partner  in  a  waltz  at  yester- 
day's ball,  passes  on  the  street.  The  sight  of  that  lady  is 
the  stimulus.  That  is  the  other  extreme  in  the  sense  of  a 
total  absence  of  even  repetition,  not  to  mention  grouping, 
of  stimuli. 

In  all  these  cases  differing  in  muscular  activity  and  in 
stimulation  you  speak  of  "rhythm."  But  the  most  re- 
markable case  among  them  is  the  case  where  the  sight  of 
the  lady  is  followed  by  a  gentle  tapping  of  the  lone  finger 
on  the  table,  first  a  little  stronger,  then  twice  a  little  more 
softly,  and  so  forth.  In  this  combination  of  extreme  con- 
ditions, with  the  peculiarities  of  the  stimulation  and  of  the 
reaction  apparently  entirely  unrelated,  incommensurable, 
the  very  problem  of  "rhythm"  formulates  itself  in  your 
thought :  What  is  it  that  the  Other-One's  nervous  system 
possesses  which  conditions  such  a  strange  mode  of  reaction, 
repeating  grouped  motions  when  there  it  neither  grouping 
nor  repetition  in  the  stimulation? 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GROUPING"  OF  MOTIONS  337 

There  was  a  time  when  psychologists  were  quite  ready — 
too  ready — to  answer  this  question  by  saying  "Rhythm  is 
one  of  the  human  instincts."  As  in  the  case  of  imitative 
actions,  so  in  that  of  rhythmic  actions  this  answer  is  no 
longer  acceptable.  It  was  excusable  only  as  long  as  psy- 
chologists meant  by  "instincts"  some  mysterious  property 
of  the  soul.  It  is  inexcusable  nowadays  when  the  role 
played  by  the  nervous  tissue  in  conducting  excitations  from 
sense  organs  to  muscles  is  sufficiently  understood  and  when 
an  "inherited  action"  has  come  to  mean  a  definite  "in- 
herited nervous  path"  from  a  definite  sensory  point  to  a 
definite  motor  point. 

The  significant  fact  in  rhythm  is  a  tendency  for  any  and 
all  muscular  activity  to  occur  in  groups  made  up  of  several 
actions  and  for  these  groups  to  be  repeated.  What,  then, 
is  the  origin  of  the  general  tendency  in  the  individual  to 
perform  muscular  actions  in  a  group  ? 

What  the  correlative  of  the  Other-One's  grouping  is  in 
his  nervous  functioning,  we  simply  do  not  know  yet.  But 
at  least  this  question  should  be  raised  and  can  be  answered 
with  our  present  knowledge :  Is  this  tendency  toward  a 
definite  manner  of  grouping  something  inherited  or  some- 
thing acquired? 

In  favor  of  answering  "inherited"  the  fact  has  often  been 
referred  to  that  only  those  manners  of  grouping  are  likely 
to  be  observed  in  the  Other-One  which  consist  of  making 
up  the  group  in  question  of  2,  3,  4,  6,  8,  and  possibly  12 
and  16,  elements.  "If  the  numbers  counted  are  so  strange- 
ly restricted,"  it  was  argued,  "the  restriction  must  be  caused 
by  heredity,  for  counting  is  in  no  way  a  restricted  habit." 
The  error  in  this  argument  is  the  assumption  that  "count- 
ing" has  something  essential  to  do  with  the  rhythm  forms. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  you  hear  the  Other-One  count 
while  performing  group  actions  you  might  as  well  say  that 


338  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

that  is  evidence  enough  for  his  lack  of  rhythm.  When  we 
say  that  the  Other-One  possesses  rhythm,  we  mean  ex- 
actly the  opposite ;  we  mean  that  we  observe  him  per- 
forming a  definite  group  activity  without  counting,  and 
even  while  by  conversation  with  him  we  intentionally  make 
his  counting  utterly  impossible. 

Another  frequently  heard,  but  inacceptable  argument  in 
favor  of  heredity  is  the  assertion  that  every  child  is  "rhyth- 
mical." But  this  argument  shows  only  how  little  time  those 
who  advance  it  have  given  to  the  observation  of  children. 
It  is  true  that  "rhythm"  is  not  the  usual  result  of  some 
years  spent  in  the  schoolroom  as  "knowing  the  multiplica- 
tion table"  is.  Nevertheless,  all  learning  is  not  confined  to 
the  schoolroom,  and  children  obviously  do  not  inherit,  but 
acquire  their  rhythm,  at  different  ages,  a  few  when  they 
are  three,  four,  or  five  years  old,  some  more  during  the 
years  of  attending  the  first  years  of  school,  some  much 
later. 

The  only  fact  which  we  have  to  make  clear,  then,  is  the 
one  referred  to  in  the  following  question:  If  rhythm  is 
an  acquisition,  including  several  acquired  habits  of  action, 
why  do  we  usually  find  among  these  habits  only  those  of 
2,  3,  4,  6,  and  8-stroke  rhythms,  and  virtually  never,  ex- 
cepting a  few  musical  compositions  of  very  few  composers, 
the  5  and  7-stroke  rhythm? 

We  shall,  therefore,  give  in  this  chapter  a  plausible  an- 
swer to  this  question.  And  after  having  reported  the  facts 
giving  this  answer,  we  shall  point  out  the  further,  very 
remarkable,  fact  that  the  rhythms  when  once  learned — no 
matter  of  which  number  of  strokes  and  by  what  muscles 
they  have  been  learned — can  be  transferred  to  any  one 
muscle  (or  several  muscles)  which  may  have  been  entirely 
inactive  during,  and  unconcerned  with,  the  acquisition  of 
that  rhythm. 


ORIGINS  OF  THE  TWO-STEOKE  RHYTHM  339 

Of  all  the  much  talked  of  kinds  of  "transference  of 
training,"  (from  one  sense  to  another  sense,  from  one 
muscle  to  another  muscle)  this  is  the  only  transference  of 
training  of  which  it  can  be  said  both  that  the  fact  of  its 
existence  (as  a  true  transference)  is  established  without 
doubt  and  that  the  way  in  which  it  comes  about  in  the  nerv- 
ous system  is  thus  far  absolutely  unknown  and  even  un- 
guessable.  No  one  has  ever  yet  made  the  barest  sugges- 
tion as  to  the  manner  of  transference  of  this  training  with- 
in the  Other-One's  nervous  system,  tho  no  one  has  ever 
denied  the  actuality  of  this  particular  transference. 

First,  now,  let  us  report  facts  which  help  to  give  the  an- 
swer to  the  former  question.  One  of  the  most  common 
(all  thru  life,  excepting  the  first  year  after  birth)  activities 
of  the  Other-One,  the  very  nature  of  which  implies  repeti- 
tion of  grouped  actions,  is  walking.  In  the  exercise  of 
this  activity  lies  probably  the  chief  opportunity  and  oc- 
casion for  the  acquisition  of  the  plain  2-stroke  rhythm. 

The  Other-One  can  not  walk  without  repeating  the  move- 
ment. But  neither  can  he  walk  without  composing  his 
activity  of  two  kinds  of  movements,  a  heavier  and  a  lighter 
one.  He  can  not  walk  hopping  along  on  one  leg  But 
when  he  alternates  the  legs,  one  of  the  movements  is  al- 
ways heavier,  or  longer,  than  the  preceding  and  following 
one.  Thus  we  have  a  group  of  two  actions.  Whether  we 
regard  this  group  as  composed  of  a  heavy  motion  followed 
by  a  light  one,  or  as  composed  of  a  light  motion  followed 
by  a  heavy  one,  (accent  first  or  accent  last)  is  quite  arbi- 
trary, purely  a  matter  of  taste  or  of  the  momentary  inter- 
est in  this  or  that  aspect  of  the  entire  phenomenon. 

Why  is  the  movement  of  one  leg  by  necessity  heavier  and 
more  prolonged  than  that  of  the  other  leg?  Simply  in  con- 
sequence of  the  Other-One's  right-sidedness.  The  right 
leg  is,  so  to  speak,  the  skilful  mechanician  and  the  left  leg 


340  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   OTHER-ONE 

his  unskilled  helper.  Balancing  on  one  leg  is  easier  on  the 
left,  because  the  skilful  part  of  the  process  of  keeping  from 
tumbling  does  not  consist  in  supporting  the  weight  of  the 
body  (the  helper  can  do  that!),  but  in  readjusting  the 
weight  distribution  quickly  from  moment  to  moment  by  the 
raised  (right)  leg,  as  the  tight  rope  walker  balances  him- 
self by  shifting  a  heavy  pole  or  loaded  parasol  held  in  his 
hands. 

We  remember  that  walking  equals  balancing  plus  the 
functioning  of  the  positive  localizing  reflex.  Balancing  is 
more  natural  on  the  left  leg  than  on  the  right ;  the  localiz- 
ing action  is  more  readily  carried  out  with  the  right  leg 
than  with  the  left.  In  walking  as  in  balancing  the  heavy 
part  of  the  work  is  naturally  assumed  by  the  left  leg,  the 
skilful  part  by  the  right  leg.  (This  is  true  even  when  the 
muscular  development  of  the  left  leg  happens  to  be  weaker 
than  that  of  the  right.  You  also  sometimes  see  a  plumber 
at  work  who  is  a  stronger  man  than  his  helper,  yet 
the  helper  has  to  do  the  heavy  work. )  It  is  no  wonder  that 
the  officer  who  wants  his  soldiers  to  mark  step,  orders  them 
to  fall  heavily  on  the  left  leg  (not  on  the  right),  because 
that  leaves  the  skillful  right  leg  free  to  attend  to  the  bal- 
ancing and  falling  forward  of  the  body  in  the  proper  direc- 
tion. 

When  we  skate  on  ice  and  desire  to  slide  a  definite  out- 
ward leading  curve,  we  discover  that  we  can  do  that  more 
easily,  with  less  risk  of  tumbling,  on  the  left  foot  turning 
to  the  left  than  on  the  right  foot  turning  to  the  right.  The 
right  leg,  swinging  in  the  air  in  the  former  case,  is  a  better 
"balancing  pole"  than,  in  the  latter  case,  the  left  leg.  Of 
chief  importance  is  the  choice  of  the  leg  which  does  the 
balancing ;  either  leg  can  probably  well  enough  do  the  mere- 
ly heavy  work  of  supporting  the  sliding  body. 


ORIGINS  OF  THE  TWO-STEOKE  RHYTHM  341 

So,  whenever  there  is  any  need  or  occasion  for  division 
of  labor,  the  left  leg  does  the  heavy  and  the  right  leg  the 
light  (but  skillful)  work.  And  that  the  work  of  the  less 
skilled  member  is  likely  to  be  a  little  more  prolonged  than 
that  of  the  skilled  member,  is  also  evident  enough. 

Walking,  then,  is  all  thru  life  a  continuous  training  in 
performing  repeated  actions  in  a  group  of  two,  a  heavier 
and  prolonged  action  alternating  with  a  lighter  and  slightly 
shortened  action.  If  our  anatomy  were  different,  if,  for 
example,  we  had  three  legs  or  four  legs  instead  of  two,  we 
should  miss  this  training.  The  quadrupeds  miss  it.  Four 
legs,  we  know  from  observing  dogs,  horses,  etc.,  do  not 
co-operate  easily  in  one  definite  manner ;  that  is,  they  do 
not  co-operate  in  the  same  manner  every  time.  Those  ani- 
mals use  now  one  gait,  now  another.  Therein  is  found 
an  obvious  explanation  of  the  fact  that  "the  animals  do  not 
have  rhythm."  The  animals  have  no  chance  of  acquiring 
it.  The  four  actions  of  the  four  legs  do  not  succeed  each 
other  at  such  regular  intervals  that  they  could  count  as  a 
regular  repetition. 

Our  hands  give  us  no  meaner  opportunities  for  such  train- 
ing than  do  our  legs.  Especially  true  is  this  in  manual 
labor,  that  is,  in  the  systematized  work  of  civilized  man, 
in  domestic  work  or  factory  work.  The  savage,  who  does 
not  perform  much  systematic  labor,  has  fewer  opportuni- 
ties of  this  kind.  And  the  savage  has  less  "rhythm."  too, 
altho  some  people  have  the  opposite  opinion  of  him.  But 
that  savage  who  often  practices  dancing  must  of  course  be 
excluded  from  this  statement.  Dancing  is  systematic  ac- 
tivity, and,  among  savages,  is  regarded  as  labor  rather  than 
recreation. 

Having  two  feet,  and  having  two  hands,  and  being  right- 
sided  (or  left-sided,  that  makes  no  diflference) — therein  lies 
the  explanation  of   why  the  2-stroke  rhythm  is  common 


342  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

among  human  individuals.      Why,  now,  also  the  4-stroke 
rhythm  ? 

There  are  many  systematic  occupations  in  which  the 
Other-One's  activity  is  composed  of  an  effective  action  fol- 
lowed by  a  mere  "rebound."  Take  as  an  instance  driving 
in  nails.  The  hammer  is  swung  down  (or  forward),  but 
naturally  rebounds  upwards  (or  back).  But  this  rebound 
must  not  be  thought  of  here  as  a  mere  physical  matter  with 
which  the  muscles  are  unconcerned.  The  antagonistic  mus- 
cles, drawing  the  hammer  up,  actually  begin  to  contract  be- 
fore the  hammer  has  hit  the  nail,  and  are  only  assisted  by 
the  physical  rebound.  Nevertheless  this  action  of  with- 
drawing the  tool  is  best  named  simply  the  rebound,  because 
that  name  makes  always  clear  what  particular  action  is  re- 
ferred to.  Such  a  double  action  of  effective  motion  plus 
rebound  is  clearly  a  further  example  of  activities  which 
lead  to  the  acquisition  of  the  2-stroke  rhythm. 

But  let  us  recall  that,  when  the  Other-One  has  to  drive 
in  a  nail,  he  is  often  observed  to  anticipate  the  strong  ac- 
tivity in  a  weaker  one,  merely  "feeling  his  way,"  so  to 
speak,  in  order  to  make  sure  in  what  curve  the  hammer 
must  swing  to  strike  the  head  of  the  nail.  Such  a  tenta- 
tive action  again  consists  of  a  (relatively)  effective  motion 
and  a  mere  rebound.  The  tentative  action  plus  the  strong 
action  make  up  then  a  total  activity  consisting  of  four  mo- 
tions. The  four  motions  succeed  each  other  at  fairly  equal 
intervals,  so  that  we  can  speak  of  regularity  of  repetition. 
The  first  is  the  tentative  hitting  motion ;  it  ranks  as  the 
second  strongest  motion.  It  is  followed  by  the  tentative 
rebound,  which  is  the  weakest  of  all,  ranking  as  the  fourth 
motion  in  strength.  Next  follows  the  strong  hitting  mo- 
tion. And  this  is  followed  by  the  strong  rebound,  which 
ranks  third  in  strength  among  the  four.  If  we  mark  the 
four  motions,  according  to  their  strength,  by  the  letters 


ORIGINS  OF  THE  FOUR-STROKE  RHYTHM  343 

A,  B,  C,  D,  their  succession  as  above  described  is  B— D — 
A — C.  Here  we  have  in  the  Other-One's  Hfe  a  common 
enough  activity  of  the  class  of  habitual  activities  which 
lead  to  the  acquisition  of  the  4-stroke  rhythm. 

What  we  said  in  discussing  the  2-stroke  rhythm  about 
the  location  of  the  accent  may  be  repeated  here.  It  is  a 
matter  of  taste  whether  we  regard  the  "group"  as  begin- 
ning with  the  accent  (that  is,  the  strongest  motion)  or  end- 
ing with  the  accent  or  having  the  accent  somewhere  with- 
in the  group. 

Of  some  significance,  however,  and  worth  mentioning  is 
the  fact  that  we  can  well  speak  here  of  a  secondary  accent 
in  addition  to  the  main  accent.  The  motion  "B,"  when 
group  follows  after  group,  has  before  and  after  itself  the 
motions  "C"  and  "D"  which  are  weaker;  it  is  therefore 
in  a  relative  sense  an  accent.  The  4-stroke  rhythm  may 
be  divided  into  two  kinds  of  4-stroke  rhythms,  with  and 
without  a  secondary  accent,  for  there  are  also  opportunities 
in  life  for  acquiring  a  4-action  group  habit  where  the  sec- 
ond strongest  action  is  not  both  preceded  and  followed  by 
a  weaker  action,  thus  giving  no  rise  to  a  secondary  accent. 

In  this  necessarily  brief  treatment  of  the  whole  phenom- 
enon of  rhythm,  what  has  been  said  concerning  the  proba- 
bility of  the  Other-One's  acquiring  the  2-stroke  rhythm 
and  the  4-stroke  rhythm  must  suffice  for  making  it  plausi- 
ble also  that  there  are,  altho  rarer,  opportunities  for  ac- 
quiring the  8-stroke  and  even  the  16-stroke  rhythms  with 
or  without  secondary,  tertiary,  etc.,  accents.  Our  next  prob- 
lem now  is  that  of  showing  by  examples  what  opportun- 
ities the  Other-One  has  for  acquiring  the  3-stroke  rhythm, 
the  6-stroke  rhythm,  and  maybe  the  1 2-stroke  rhythm. 

One  very  obvious  chance  for  changing  a  group  of  two 
actions  into  a  group  of  three  is  offered  by  the  necessity 
arising  of  performing  such  an  action  as  that  of  nail  driving 


344  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

alternately  toward  the  left  and  the  right,  or  alternately  up 
and  down.  The  Other-One  hits,  let  us  say,  a  nail  on  a 
board  before  him  below  the  level  of  his  chest  and  carries 
out  the  rebound  as  previously  discussed.  But  now,  suppose, 
he  has  to  hit  a  nail  on  the  lower  surface  of  a  board  before 
him  above  the  level  of  his  chest.  A  third  movement,  in 
the  downward  direction,  has  to  be  added  to  the  other  two 
merely  in  order  to  get  ready  for  the  work  on  the  upper 
board.  Let  us  call  this  added  movement  the  "preparatory" 
movement.  It  is  probably  the  weakest  of  the  three.  The 
hitting,  the  rebound  and  the  preparatory  movement  then 
constitute  the  group  of  three.  There  certainly  are  in  the 
Other-One's  life,  especially  in  industrial  life,  opportunities 
for  having  to  change  the  direction  of  work  alternately  into 
the  opposite  direction. 

Here  is  another  concrete  example.  Imagine  a  gardener 
having  planted  a  double  row  of  plants  like  the  dots  of  our 
figure  "Steps  creating  a  3-stroke  or  6-stroke  rhythm."  In 
order  to  keep  the  loose  earth,  just  thrown  around  the  roots 
of  each  plant,  from  drying,  it  is  necessary  to  compress  it 
and  thus  render  efifective  the  capillary  attraction  which 
draws  the  moisture  from  the  lower  soil.    The  quickest  way 

— * v^--A-V/\--A^-Wv — ^ 

STEPS   CREATING   A   3    OR   6-STROKE    RHYTHM. 

of  doing  the  work  is  to  walk  along  the  center  line  of  the 
double  row  and  to  step,  with  the  full  weight  of  the  body, 
on  each  of  the  places  which  need  compression,  using,  of 
course,  alternately  the  right  and  the  left  foot.  Now,  try  to 
walk  ahead,  doing  this,  and  observe  how  your  legs  most 
naturally  act  during  this  procedure.  While  you  are  stand- 
ing on  your  right  foot,  the  muscles  of  your  right  leg  are 


OEIGINS  OF  THE  THKEE-STEOKE  RHYTHM  345 

strained  in  such  a  way  as  to  keep  the  leg  straight  and  able 
to  support  the  weight  of  the  body,  but  not  in  such  a  way 
as  to  throw  readily  the  weight  of  the  body  upon  the  other 
foot.  For  this  a  complete  readjustment  of  the  muscles  of 
the  right  leg  is  requisite.  To  bring  about  the  muscular  re- 
adjustment, you  most  naturally  let  the  body  fall  lightly  up- 
on the  left  foot  and  let  it  swing  back  to  the  right.  Thus 
you  assume  that  new  position  on  the  right  foot  in  which  the 
tension  of  the  various  muscles  is  adjusted  so  that  the  full 
weight  of  the  body  can  be  thrown  on  the  left  foot  force- 
fully and  skillfully.  The  left  foot  now  hits  exactly  the 
spot  in  the  left  row  on  the  ground  where  the  compression 
of  the  soil  is  needed. 

What,  then,  have  you  really  done  instead  of  stepping 
simply  from  the  right  foot  upon  the  left?  You  have  made 
two  intermediate  steps  of  a  much  less  forceful  kind,  merely 
preparatory  to  the  proper  stepping  on  the  loose  soil.  Be- 
fore you  now  step  on  the  next  spot  in  the  right  row,  you 
make  again  two  preparatory  steps,  and  so  you  continue 
your  agricultural  work  most  easily  (that  is,  most  naturally) 
and  most  effectively.  Between  each  two  compressing  move- 
ments there  are  always  two  different  preparatory  move- 
ments, both  of  an  easy  character. 

The  6-stroke  rhythm  can  be  understood  most  easily  as  the 
total  activity  including  both  the  activities  on  the  alternating 
sides.  If,  for  instance,  we  consider  the  Other-One's  ham- 
mer movement  toward  the  left  as  being  under  special  cir- 
cumstances accidentally  of  more  consequence  than  the  ham- 
mer movement  to  the  right,  and  therefore  as  being  stronger, 
we  at  once  have  a  group  of  six  motions  among  which  the 
first  has  the  main  accent  and  the  fourth  a  secondary  ac- 
cent. But  undoubtedly  there  are  also  opportunities  in  the 
Other-One's  life  for  acquiring  the  habit  of  a  group  of  six 
actions  among  which  the  first  has  the  main  accent  and  the 


346  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-OXE 

third  and  the  fifth  both  have  secondary  accents ;  or  of  six 
actions  among  which  one  has  "the"  accent,  there  being  no 
secondary  accents  whatsoever. 

Thus  far  we  have  convinced  ourselves  that  opportunities 
are  not  infrequent  in  the  Other-One's  Hfe  for  acquiring  the 
2-stroke,  3-stroke,  4-stroke,  6-stroke,  8-stroke  rhythms.  We 
use  the  pktral  form  "rhythms"  advisedly,  for  it  has  already 
become  clear  to  us  that  the  Other-One  does  not  acquire 
"rhythm"  in  the  abstract,  but  particular  rhythms  of  so  many 
actions  per  group.  Who,  now,  will  suggest  to  us  probable 
life  activities  of  the  Other-One  in  which  five  or  seven 
regularly  repeated  actions  are  unified  into  groups  having 
each  an  accent  ? 

The  fact  that  such  activities  are  extremely  rare  explains 
to  us  at  once  why  5-stroke  and  7-stroke  rhythms  are  so 
rarely  observed  in  playful  activity,  in  music,  in  poetry  and 
elsewhere  in  the  Other-One's  life.  There  is  no  need  of  the 
almost  ridiculous  assumption  that  creative  Nature  possesses 
such  a  dislike  (reminding  one  of  the  "horror  vacui"  in 
medieval  physics)  for  the  numbers  "5"  and  "7"  that  she  left 
these  out  in  making  us  a  gift  of  "rhythm." 

However,  while  opportunities  for  acquiring  the  5-stroke 
rhythm  are  actually  rare  in  the  Other-One's  life,  we  should 
be  able  to  create  such  opportunities  artificially  and  inten- 
tionally if  we  are  interested  in  the  matter.  What,  for  in- 
stance, would  make  up  an  activity  of  this  kind?  If  any 
one  suggests  counting  "1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5"  and  putting  an  arti- 
ficial accent  every  time,  say,  on  "1,"  we  may  accept  this  as 
a  possible  method  of  acquiring  this  rhythm,  for  there  would 
be  regularly  repeated  (speech)  actions  of  which  every  fifth 
would  be  the  strongest.  But  this  method  of  using  a  count- 
ing exercise  in  order  to  acquire  the  rhythm  would  turn  out 
to  be  an  exceedingly  poor  method. 


ACQUIRING  UNUSUAL  RHYTHMS 


347 


A  good  method  has  been  found  to  be  the  following  one, 
which  employs  a  wooden  frame,  a  square  about  two  feet 
high,  placed  upon  the  table  before  the  Other-One  whom 
we  desire  to  train.  The  frame  has  four  buttons  on  the  in- 
side, as  shown  in  the  figure,  which  may  be  furnished  for 
experimental  purposes  with  bells  or  recording  devices  of 
any  desired  kind.  The  Other-One  is  given  a  heavy  spherical 
rubber  mallet  and  asked  to  do  a  particular  kind  of  work  on 
the  buttons  of  the  frame.  He  is  never  told  to  count  anything. 
Counting  is  never  mentioned  to  him.  All  possible  varieties 
of  rhythm  can  be  acquired  by  properly  chosen  forms  of 
exercise  on  this  frame  (even  the  11-stroke  and  the  13- 
stroke  rhythms), — without  any  counting  whatsoever. 

We  tell  the  Other-One  to  hit  the  left  button  "tenta- 
tively," carry  out  the  "rebound."  hit  the  same  button 
"strongly,"  carry  out  the  "rebound,"  and  then  add  a  "pre- 


FRAME  FOR  LEARNING   UNUSUAL   RHYTHMS. 

paratory"  motion  in  order  to  get  ready  to  do  exactly  the 
same  with  only  sides  exchanged  to  the  button  on  the  right 
of  the  frame.  Immediately  after  that  it  is  done  again  on 
the  left,  and  so  forth  alternately.  The  activity  consists  of 
five  regularly  repeated  actions  grouped,  so  that  every  fifth 
action  in  the  repeated  groups  has  an  accent.  When  the 
Other-One  has  taken  this  exercise  five  minutes  a  day  for 
four  weeks,  he  tells  us  he  now  has  "the  5-stroke  rhythm" 


348  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTIIEE-ONE 

comparable  in  every  way  to  the  2-stroke  and  3-stroke 
rhythms  which  he  previously  possessed.  There  is  then  no 
reason  left  for  believing  that  those  other  rhythms  were  not 
also  acquired.  Merely  occasions  for  acquiring  them  oc- 
curred at  an  earlier  time  in  his  life, — and  occur  with  some 
probability  some  time  in  everybody's  life. 

Or,  we  tell  the  Other-One  to  hit  the  left  button,  then 
carry  out  the  rebound,  then  make  a  preparatory  movement 
for  doing  the  same  thing  toward  the  right  button ;  but, 
after  having  done  it  on  the  right  and  having  made  the  sec- 
ond preparatory  movement,  not  to  continue  on  the  left  but 
to  make  an  additional  preparatory  movement  thru  a  quarter 
circle  in  order  to  get  ready  to  perform  the  whole  group  of 
the  six  motions  now  up  and  down,  as  he  made  them  before 
right  and  left.  The  exercise  leads  here  after  a  few  weeks 
to  the  acquisition  of  a  7-stroke  rhythm  which  appears 
perfectly  like  any  ordinary  rhythm. 

The  5-stroke  and  7-stroke  rhythms  can  not,  therefore,  be 
said  to  be  essentially  different  in  origin  and  quality  from 
the  usual  rhythms.  The  only  thing  that  can  be  said  of 
them  is  the  fact  that  occasions  for  accidentally  and  incident- 
ally acquiring  them  are  very  rare. 

Musicians  have  begun  to  use  the  5-stroke  and  the  7- 
stroke  rhythms,  in  compositions  of  the  highest  quality. 
Maybe  some  poet  will  have  the  courage  to  follow  in  their 
footsteps.  The  fact,  however,  that  musicians  and  poets 
have  virtually  abstained  from  using  these  rhythms,  has 
nothing  astonishing  for  us.  Few  are  the  musicians  (for 
example,  Tshaikovsky)  who  have  these  rhythms,  and  few 
are  the  lovers  of  music  who  have  them.  There  is  little  in- 
ducement, then,  for  any  musician  to  employ  these  rhythm 
forms  in  his  compositions. 

But  we  hear  them  once  in  a  while,  and  not'  only  in  music 
of  the  European  variety.     The  writer  has  seen  Arabs  in  a 


FIVE-STROKE  EHYTHM  349 

religious  street  procession,  with  flags  and  brasiers  in  their 
hands,  wr.lking  along  in  dancing  steps,  five  steps  in  a  group. 
And  he  found  there  the  confirmation  of  his  previously  es- 
tablished conviction  that  the  alternate  change  of  a  lateral 
or  vertical  activity  into  a  similar  one  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion (as  above  described)  is  probably  the  most  influential 
factor  in  establishing  rhythms  of  the  odd  number  kinds. 
These  Arabs  in  the  procession  face  at  every  fifth  step  alter- 
nately the  spectators  on  the  right  side  and  on  the  left  side 
of  the  street,  saluting  now  the  one  side,  now  the  other.  And 
the  Arabic  music  band  plays  a  "march"  which,  very  fitting- 
ly, with  perfect  distinctness  consists  of  five  equally  long 
tonal  phrase  elements  to  the  measure.    The  musicians  them- 


=?: 


M 


"■& 


f    f    ^ 


i>«i« 1- — U«eS- 


ARABIC    MARCHING    DANCE. 


selves  dance  while  playing.  The  music  is  here  reproduced. 
It  is  endlessly  repeated.  (There  are  no  harmonies.)  The 
old  assertion  that  all  '"true"  rhythms  contain  only  numbers 
made  up  of  the  prime  numbers  2  and  3  as  factors  is  clearly 
a  myth.    The  word  "true"  in  this  sense  is  meaningless. 

The  fact  has  already  been  stated  that  any  particular 
rhythm,  after  having  been  acquired  by  the  Other-One  thru 
the  acquisition  of  a  particular  habit  of  concerted  (serial,  or 
group)  action,— amazing  as  this  may  seem — transfers  itself 
with  ease  to  virtually  any  arbitrarily  chosen  motor  point, 
or  motor  points,  of  the  body.  The  nervous  system  as  a 
whole,  that  is,  is  after  that  habit  acquisition  capable  of  con- 
ducting, anywhere  and  anywhence  within  it,  a  particular 
succession  of  stronger  and  weaker  stream  waves  with  spe- 
cial ease.  How  that  comes  about  is  unknown.  But  the 
fact  of  this  transference  is  only  the  more  remarkable. 


350  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

When  the  nervous  system  is  once  in  possession  of  this 
peculiar  capacity  and  tendency,  we  say  that  the  Other-One 
has  "rhythm,"  or,  more  correctly,  that  he  has  a  particular 
rhythm,  which  may  "crop  out"  at  any  time  in  any  muscles 
of  his  body.  Whenever  he  happens  to  execute  this  rhythm 
in  response  to  a  perfectly  regular  (that  is,  known  by  us  to 
be  perfectly  regular)  succession  of  stimuli,  tones,  drum 
beats,  ticking  noises,  or  what  not,  he  is  likely  to  answer  a 
question  in  this  respect  by  telling  us  that  these  sounds  are 
not  all  alike,  that  they  themselves  "have  rhythm."  Since 
we  know  better,  and  since  he  will  probably  contradict  him- 
self after  a  while,  we  have  here  a  new  example  of  those 
reactions  which  are  "wasted"  and  which,  therefore,  are 
called  "illusions."  Rhythm  experiences  are  often,  and  quite 
rightly,  mentioned  in  the  text-books  as  samples  of  illusions. 
We  all  probably  have  had  such  illusions  of  rhythm  while 
riding  at  leisure  on  a  steamboat  or  in  a  train.  We  find 
ourselves  able  to  change  the  rhythm  of  the  train  at  our 
own  sweet  will.  The  stronger  our  own  habits  of  group 
activity  are  (for  instance,  if  we  are  passionate  dancers), 
the  more  readily  come  these  wasted  reactions,  these  illu- 
sions. 

An  especially  interesting  transference  of  rhythm  is  the 
transference  to  the  function  of  the  speech  organs.  We  call 
the  result  poetry,  without,  however,  wishing  to  convey  the 
idea  that  this  is  the  only  characteristic  or  even  one  ab- 
solutely indispensable  property  of  everything  which  goes 
properly  under  the  name  of  poetry. 

In  all  his  games  and  recreations  the  Other-One  enjoys 
the  ability  to  perform  easily  an  apparently  difficult  feat,  or, 
as  in  the  circus,  to  see  other  persons  or  animals  perform 
easily  apparently  difficult  feats.  So  he  enjoys  poetry.  Mere- 
ly to  speak  in  prose  correctly  and  logically  does  not  appear 
very  difficult  to  the  Other-One.     To  act  rhythmically  does 


TEANSFEBENCE    OF  RHYTHMS  351 

not  either  appear  very  difficult  in  producing  meaningless 
sounds.  But  a  combination  of  rhythm  in  speech  with  good 
grammar,  syntax,  and  logical  sense  seems  so  impossible  that 
when  it  is  successfully  accomplished,  it  is  very  enjoyable. 

Of  course,  there  is  rhythm  also  in  prose.  But  it  is  not 
applied  with  such  long  continued  regularity  as  in  poetry, 
where  the  regularity  is  called  the  "meter." 

Wrong  ideas  are  often  entertained  with  respect  to  the 
rhythm  of  music.  Only  in  dance  and  march  music  is  the 
rhythm  of  music  comparable  in  regularity  to  that  of  poetry 
with  a  definite  meter.  In  all  other  artistically  performed 
music  the  rhythm  is  much  more  comparable  to  the  rhythm 
of  prose  than  to  that  of  poetry.  That  all  music  is  written 
in  measures  has  a  purpose  other  than  that  of  securing  a 
"meter."  The  written  musical  measure  is  a  pseudo-rhythmi- 
cal group,  introduced  merely  for  the  practical  purpose  of 
adjusting  the  time  relations  of  the  tones  to  some  standard 
and  aiding  several  performers  in  finding  out  how  to  play 
together. 

Quite  erroneous  would  be  the  idea  that  the  fact  that  peo- 
ple dance  is  one  of  the  results  of  a  transference  to  the  feet 
of  any  particular  rhythms  previously  acquired.  Such  a 
transference  is,  of  course,  not  impossible ;  but  it  would  be 
much  truer  to  say  that  the  Other-One  has  rhythm  because 
he  often  dances  than  to  say  that  he  dances  because  he  has 
rhythm.  The  main  origins  of  the  dance  can  be  found  in 
special  (real  or  imaginary)  human  needs,  as  a  study  of 
anthropology  reveals,  not  in  an  irresistable  impulse  to  apply 
rhythm  to  otherwise  unrhythmical  locomotion.  On  the 
other  hand,  dancing,  having  once  established  itself  as  a 
habit  in  the  Other-One.  becomes  one  factor  of  great  im- 
portance for  developing  in  him  particular  rhythms. 

The  value  of  rhythm  for  increasing  the  efficiency  ot  labor 
has  often  been  spoken  of  in  books.     But  while  rhythm  has 


352  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

such  a  value,  this  value  is  usually  overestimated  by  the 
authors.  As  with  respect  to  the  dance,  so  it  may  be  said 
with  respect  to  the  performance  of  systematic  labor  that 
more  frequently  the  Other-One  can  be  said  to  have  rhythm 
because  he  often  labors  than  that  he  labors  efficiently  be- 
cause he  has  rhythm. 

The  workmen  of  countries  with  a  somewhat  retarded 
civilization  (the  Orient)  are  often  quoted  as  making  their 
simple  labor  performances  more  efficient  by  forcing  it,  thru 
the  medium  of  song,  to  be  rhythmical.  The  writer,  in  mak- 
ing observations  relative  to  this  question,  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  the  song  usually  serves,  mainly  or  even  ex- 
clusively, an  entirely  different  purpose.  For  instance,  when 
three  laborers  tamp  the  clay  into  a  form  in  order  to  con- 
struct the  wall  of  a  building,  they  sing.  But  they  sing 
quite  obviously  not  in  order  to  make  their  work  rhythmic. 
Their  work  is  not  rhythmic.  The  raising  of  the  heavy 
tamp  is  so  slow,  and  its  downward  motion  so  quick,  that 
there  is  nothing  rhythmic  in  the  individual  laborer's  work. 
And  they  succeed  each  other  in  tamping — so  much  is  true — , 
but  the  succession  is  so  irregular  that  one  can  not  speak  of 
anything  rhythmical  there  either. 

Nevertheless  they  sing.  But  each  one  sings  while  he  is 
doing  his  share  of  the  work.  And  the  other  two  laborers, 
during  their  brief  pause  in  their  work,  pause  generally  in 
their  singing  too.  The  song,  then,  is  a  signal  meaning  (al- 
tho  the  words  sung  literally  do  not  have  to  mean  this)  :  "I 
have  done  my  share  of  the  work;  now  do  you  yours."  And 
the  second  laborer  raises  his  tamp  in  response  to  the  signal, 
in  turn  also  takes  up  the  song  and  thus  gives  the  signal  to 
the  third  laborer  that  his  time  has  come  to  do  his  share. 
It  may  happen  that  the  third  then  raises  his  tamp,  but  makes 
three  or  four  quick  and  weak  impressions  on  the  clay,  here 
and  there,  rather  than  one  heavy  blow  if  the  latter  is  less 


LABOR  AXD  RHYTHM  353 

needed  at  the  moment.  He  lengthens  the  singing  a  httle. 
Signahng  to  each  other  and  thereby  encouraging  each  other 
to  continue  their  heavy  task, —  that  is  the  purpose  of  the 
song  rather  than  to  increase  the  efficiency  of  their  labor  by 
forcing  it  into  a  (here  virtually  impossible)  rhythm. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

How  THE  Other-One  Talks  and  Writes  to  Himself. 

There  is  no  need  of  describing  in  detail,  in  a  psychology 
text-book,  the  invention  of  script.  Only  this  let  us  recall 
that  signaling  by  drawing  a  design  of  an  object  is  a  very 
natural  invention.  If  the  traveler  in  the  wilderness,  for  ex- 
ample, hides  provisions  and  wants  his  friends,  who  will 
come  later,  to  find  the  hiding  place,  he  carves  or  paints  the 
outline  of  an  animal  used  for  alimentation  on  the  tree  or 
rock  beneath  which  the  provisions  are  hidden.  Of  this 
nature  are  also  the  famous  Egyptian  hieroglyphics. 

These  visual  signals,  once  invented,  quite  naturally  be- 
come substitutes,  as  occasion  arises,  for  auditory  signals. 
That  is,  they  become  phonetic  characters  in  which  the  ab- 
breviated picture  represents  the  sound  of  the  whole  word 
that  is  the  name  of  the  object.  If  your  voice  does  not 
carry  the  word  "meat"  across  the  valley  to  your  friends  on 
the  other  ridge,  you  send  a  written  message,  the  phonetic 
symbol  which  represents  that  word,  across  to  your  friends. 

Soon  the  phonetic  symbol  comes  to  represent,  no  longer 
that  whole  word,  but  only  the  chief  sound,  usually  the  in- 
itial sound,  of  the  word.  Phonetic  script  is  then  invented. 
Phonetic  script  is  a  kind  of  frozen  speech,  just  as  in  a  later 
(but  actually  much  simpler)  invention  the  disk  of  a  talk- 
ing machine  is  a  kind  of  frozen  speech. 

Altho  speech  is  nothing  but  a  development  into  compli- 
cated habits  of  the  original  signaling  reflex  acting  on  the 
other  animal's  auditory  organ,  it  assumes  a  new  role  in  the 
Other-One's  life  thru  being  used  by  him  in  order  to  signal 
to  himself.     It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  support  by  far 

354' 


SPEECH  AND  SCKIPT  355 

fetched  evidence  the  assertion  that  the  Other-One  often 
signals  to  himself,  often  speaks  to  himself.  Everybody 
knows  that.  But  what  is  the  use  of  doing  that?  Its  use 
is,  in  philosophical  terminology,  generalization  and  abstrac- 
tion. It  is  our  business  here  to  understand  it  as  a  nervous 
function. 

1.  A  child,  in  the  presence  of  such  things  as  bread, 
fruit,  edible  roots,  meat,  impressing  his  eye,  learns  to  pro- 
nounce the  word  "food."  Instead  of  handling  these  things 
in  accordance  with  his  reflexes  and  already  acquired  habits, 
he  speaks  the  word  which  his  parents  and  other  people  of 
his  environment  use  as  the  common  name  of  these  things. 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  child's  ear  is  struck  by 
the  .sound  "food,"  he  learns  to  respond  (if  otherwise  than 
by  repeating  '"food")  by  such  particular  muscular  activities 
as  are  adapted  either  to  the  preparation  and  cooking  or  the 
consumption  by  the  mouth  of  bread,  fruit,  edible  roots,  and 
similar  articles.  The  word  heard  takes  the  place  of  the 
things  seen  in  the  nervous  functions  which  result  in  hand- 
ling. From  now  on,  whenever  the  word  has  struck  the 
ear,  the  muscles  which  co-operate  in  properly  handling 
these  things  get  ready  to  work  rather  than  other  muscles 
get  ready  to  handle  other  things  which  also  impress  the  eye 
at  the  time.  The  nervous  paths  serving  the  latter  impres- 
sions are  at  a  disadvantage  in  not  being  "cleared  for  action" 
(by  deflection  or  by  preoccupation)  thru  the  word  signal 
commanding  them. 

Under  (1)  we  mentioned  the  speech  action  "food,"  under 
(2)  the  speech  sound  "food."  We  know,  however,  that 
the  sound  resulting  from  the  speech  action  stimulates  the 
ear  of  the  very  person  who  speaks.  Thus  the  motor  action 
of  speaking  and  the  resulting  excitation  of  the  ear  become 
a  double  link  inserted  between  the  mere  sight  of  the  article 
of    food    (among  other   things)     and   its    proper   handling 


356  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

(among  other  ways  of  handling).  This  insertion  of  a  new 
Hnk  into  the  chain  of  functions  is  not  an  unnecessary,  un- 
economical complication.  It  is  a  helpful  link  because  it  is 
"the  same  link"  however  different  the  visual  appearances 
of  the  articles  of  food  (they  are  all  called  by  this  par- 
ticular name  "food")  and  however  different  the  ways  of 
handling  and  preparing  them  before  swallowing  (they  are 
all  called  "feeding").  Thus  stimuli  most  different  and  re- 
actions most  different  are  all  brought  together  into  one 
sensory-motor  class. 

This  classing  together,  in  the  terminology  of  logic,  is 
"generalization."  In  the  life  of  animals  generalization  is 
virtually  absent  because,  without  speech,  such  classing  to- 
gether of  functions  is  very  unlikely  to  occur.  But  let  us 
not  think  that  it  is  absolutely  lacking  in  animals.  A  dog, 
for  example,  classes  together  certain  sights  ("outdoors," 
in  contrast  with  "indoors")  and  certain  actions,  and  per- 
forms the  latter  only  outdoors.  Nevertheless,  the  differ- 
ence between  human  beings  and  animals  may  well  be  de- 
scribed by  saying  that  the  latter  do  not  generalize,  or  by 
saying,  as  we  did  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book,  that  the 
former  are  thoughtful  and  the  latter  are  thoughtless,  which 
refers  to  exactly  the  same  observable  facts. 

Let  us  imagine  another  instance.  A  child  has  a  solid 
article  in  his  hand,  or  between  his  teeth,  or  in  a  pocket,  or 
beneath  his  feet.  An  adequate  stimulus  causes  him  to  trans- 
fer it  from  his  place  to  a  place  farther  away  occupied  by 
another  person.  The  child,  transferring  the  thing,  is  stimu- 
lated by  the  sound  "give"  and  pronounces  himself,  imitat- 
ingly,  this  word  "give." 

But  the  child  also  learns  to  respond  to  the  auditory  stim- 
ulation "give"  by  a  motion  transferring  whatever  is  trans- 
ferable. 


GEXERALIZATIOX   AXD    ACSTEACTIOX  35  < 

Later  he  is  busy  transferring,  hears  the  word  "give,"  re- 
peats it  by  pronouncing  it  himself,  responds  to  his  own 
voice  by  transferring,  and  thus  has  within  his  action  of 
transferring  a  speech  function  which  seems  to  be  a  perfect- 
ly superfluous  accompaniment  and  superfluous  representa- 
tive of  the  action  of  transferring. 

Transferring transferring     continued 

Transferring saying     "give" sound     of     "give" transferring     continued 

This  representative,  accompanying  its  constitueni,  v/ould 
indeed  be  an  unnecessary  complication  of  nervous  activity, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  additional  function  is 
practically  the  same  however  diiterent  the  manner  of  mo- 
tion transferring  the  article  in  question :  by  stretching  out 
the  hand,  throwing,  kicking,  dropping  from  an  elevated 
place,  rolling  down  a  hill  side,  not  to  mention  sending  it  by 
a  messenger,  by  mail,  or  by  any  other  device  of  modern 
transportation.  This  establishment  of  a  definite  function 
identical  in  spite  of  untold  variations  of  the  motor  activities 
which  it  represents — they  are  all  called  giving — is  obviously 
also  a  generalization.  Or,  in  the  terminology  of  logic,  it  is 
an  abstraction.  Abstraction,  then,  is  a  special  case  of  gen- 
eralization— generalization,  not  with  reference  to  objects, 
but  with  reference  to  relations  (spatial  transference,  in  the 
instance  discussed). 

The  difference  between  the  biological  functions  in  ordi- 
nary generalization  and  in  this  special  kind  of  generaliza- 
tion, abstraction,  might  be  described  thus.  In  ordinary  gen- 
eralization the  object  handled  is  of  main  significance.  The 
manner  of  handling  it  is  of  importance  only  in  so  far  as 
the  object  is  distinguished  from  objects  of  a  different  clas? 
by  the  proper  mode  of  handling  it, — for  example,  "food" 
is  an  object  to  be  eaten  by  the  responsive  animal.  In  ab- 
straction the  mode  of  handling  is  of  main  significance.  The 
object  itself  is  important  exclusively  in  so  far  as,  if  there 


358  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

were  no  object  whatsoever,  no  handling  of  it  could  have 
occurred. 

The  purpose  of  our  present  discussion  is  not  to  give  a 
lesson  in  logic.  Our  intention  is  to  show  briefly,  but  con- 
clusively, that  practically  no  generalization  or  abstraction 
is  possible  without  speech,  and  to  make  clear  by  concrete 
examples  what  is  meant  biologically  by  such  terms  as  gen- 
eralization and  abstraction.  In  order  to  make  the  signifi- 
cance of  speech  in  the  Other-One's  individual  life — over 
and  above  its  social  significance  in  signaling  for  co-opera- 
tion in  actual  labor — still  clearer,  let  us  discuss  a  third  con- 
crete sample  case  taken  from  life. 

The  Other-One,  after  having  had  both  the  speech  experi- 
ences above  described  of  "food"  and  of  "give,"  happens  to 
meet  a  beggar  who  "signals"  to  him  with  the  words  "food, 
give."  The  Other-One  then  looks  about  until  his  eyes  are 
arrested  by  an  article  belonging  to  the  class  "food."  A 
piece  of  bread  may  serve  to  bring  this  about.  He  then  ap- 
proaches the  bread  and  would  now  respond  to  its  sight 
simply  by  the  most  firmly  established  habit,  by  taking  it 
and  eating  it,  had  his  ears  not  been  stimulated  by  the  sound 
of  the  word  "give"  too.  So  he  responds  by  giving  the  piece 
of  bread  to  the  beggar. 

Similar  experiences  take  place  quite  frequently  in  every 
child's  as  in  every  grown  person's  life.  Suppose  the  ad- 
dress has  been  "food,  give,  hungry."  The  child  thus  learns 
to  react  to  the  signal  "hungry"  in  the  same  way  as  to  the 
sentence  (if  these  two  words  may  be  called  a  sentence) 
"food,  give."  He  learns  to  react  to  the  word  "hungry"  by 
looking  about  for  edible  things,  taking  hold  of  them,  and 
transferring  them  to  the  other  being.  There  is  new  economy 
by  means  of  a  new  "abstraction,"  one  word  taking  the 
functional  place  of  several. 


ABSTRACTION  IS  AN  ECONOMY  359 

What  a  wealth  of  possible  actions  is  thus  placed  under 
the  control  of  the  single  speech  function  "hungry !"  The 
Other-One,  when  fully  experienced,  hearing  this  word,  looks 
about  until  an  edible  thing  strikes  his  eyes.  But  if  this  does 
not  happen  to  his  eyes,  other  reactions  follow  in  a  more  or 
less  definite  series.  He  may  put  his  hands  into  his  pockets 
to  search  for  food.  He  may  walk  home  in  order  to  find 
food  there.  He  may  open  his  chest  or  cabinet,  take  money 
from  it,  and  go  to  the  store  where  food  is  for  sale.  Or  he 
may  go  out  to  his  fields,  cut  his  wheat,  and  store  it  away 
under  the  roof  of  a  barn  in  order  to  be  able  to  give  food 
at  a  later  time  when  the  sound  hungry  may  strike  his  ear 
again.  Not  having  any  wheat  mature  on  his  fields,  he  may 
take  out  his  horses  and  implements  and  plow  the  ground  on 
which  wheat  is  only  to  be  sown.  He  may  attend,  as  a  stu- 
dent, an  agricultural  college  where  he  learns  how  to  grow 
wheat  most  successfully  on  his  farm.  He  may  vote  in 
favor  of  his  government  spending  money  for  the  support 
of  such  a  college.  Further  think  of  the  innumerable  pos- 
sible activities  which  make  provision  for  the  transportation 
of  the  food  from  place  to  place,  from  the  producer  to  the 
consumer!  To  enumerate  even  those  activities  which  are 
more  directly  controlled  by  the  word  hungry,  would  require 
a  volume.  Of  the  activities  which  we  have  mentioned, 
some  are  rather  remotely  dependent  on  the  abstraction 
"hungry."  The  more  remotely  they  are  dependent  on  it, 
the  more  numerous,  of  course,  are  the  other  abstractions 
on  which  they  are  also — more  or  less  directly — dependent, 
so  that,  then,  the  actual  motor  response  becomes  more  and 
more  the  resultant  of  many  components,  of  all  the  activities 
controlled  by  all  the  abstractions. 

We  have  thus  far  spoken  of  the  word  "hungry"  only  as 
denoting  a  sound,  stimulating  the  ear  and  controlling  by 
means  of  the  nervous  paths  diverging  from  the  ear  a  vast 


360  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHEE-OXE 

number  of  highly  comphcated  motor  responses.  We  said 
above,  that  the  word  hungry  was  often  heard  together  with 
the  words  food  and  give.  At  such  a  time  it  must  have  been 
imitated  by  the  child  in  question.  It  is  plain,  however,  that 
the  same  word,  hungry,  is  also  heard  in  other  situations, 
especially  at  the  time  when  the  members  of  the  family  as- 
semble to  take  their  meals  together.  At  that  time  the 
child's  sensory  points  of  the  stomach  are  likely  to  be  ex- 
cited by  the  physiological  condition  called  liunger  technical- 
ly by  the  physiologists.  Accordingly,  the  child  learns  to 
say  "hungry"  in  response  to  that  sensory  excitation. 

Whenever  he  responds  thus,  he  produces  the  sound  of  the 
word,  and  the  sound  acts  on  his  own  ear.  Quite  naturally, 
then,  the  speech  function  "hungry"  becomes  an  intermediate 
link  between  the  sensory  excitation  of  physiological  hunger 
and  that  vast  number  of  responses  above  mentioned,  in- 
cluding such  things  as  the  deposit  of  a  ballot  in  a  box,  all 
serving,  with  greater  or  less  directness,  to  dispel  hunger 
not  only  in  others  but  in  himself. 

It  is  not  difficult,  then,  to  understand  the  value  of  ab- 
stractions to  the  Other-One.  They  serve  to  make  ready,  in- 
stead of  the  simple  reflex  corresponding  to  the  stimulation 
or  a  simple  habit  having  taken  that  reflex's  place,  an  enor- 
mous number  of  complex  motor  responses  among  which 
for  actual  execution  a  selection  is  made,  that  is,  is  condi- 
tioned, by  the  other  sensory  factors  of  the  situation  and  by 
the  motor  tendencies  of  the  abstractions  belonging  to  them. 
The  functioning  of  abstractions  (his  "thoughtfulness"  in 
popular  terminology),  which  is  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  man's  life  as  compared  with  that  of  animals,  is  made 
possible  by  the  acquisition  of  speech. 

The  speech  functions  here  described  are  habits  in  no  es- 
sential manner  different  from  other  habits.  The  mere  fact 
that  the  muscles  in  question  are  the  muscles  of  our  speech 


MOTOR   HABITS  AND   MEMORY  361 

organs  and  not  those  of  our  hands  and  feet,  does  not  es- 
tablish an  essential  distinction  between  these  and  other 
habits.  The  laws  of  nervous  function  governing  the  forma- 
tion of  habits  are  the  same  for  the  "generalization  and  ab- 
straction" habits  and  for  other  habits.  In  ordinary  life  we 
distinguish  them  often  by  calling  the  other  habits  simply 
"habits,"  or  motor  habits,  or  manual  habits,  or  postural 
habits,  and  denying  the  name  "habits"  altogether  to  the 
habits  of  generalization  and  abstraction,  giving  them  in- 
stead such  names  as  memory,  or  reasoning  power,  or 
thought.  This  division  into  two  classes  has  its  advantages 
from  the  sociological  point  of  view ;  but  it  has  little  to  com- 
mend it  from  the  psychologist's  point  of  view. 

It  would  be  a  complete  misunderstanding  of  the  func- 
tioning of  speech  in  the  generalizations  and  abstractions  of 
an  adult,  if  we  should  think  that  in  every  such  case  he  must 
be  heard  to  speak  or  mutter  to  himself  in  a  manner  audible 
to  others.  We  know  that  sometimes  he  can  be  heard  to 
speak  to  himself.  But  the  muscular  contractions  may  be 
far  too  weak  to  result  in  actual  sound  production.  And 
yet  their  action  as  kinesthetic  stimuli  may  be  strong  enough 
to  bring  about  the  effects  which  their  action  as  sound 
stimuli  would  have  brought  about.  It  goes  without  saying 
that  the  kinesthetic  and  sound  stimulations  which  are  al- 
ways (normally)  the  simultaneous  results  of  speaking,  come 
to  take  each  other's  place  with  absolute  definiteness  on  the 
sensory  side  of  all  habit  functions  in  which  either  the  one 
or  the  other  plays  a  role. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  even  necessary,  in  order  that  the 
speech  organs  may  play  their  parts  in  generalizations  and 
abstractions,  for  their  muscles  to  contract  at  all.  It  is  quite 
possible,  tho  not  as  yet  a  proved  fact,  that  nervous  cur- 
rents, after  having  passed  into  muscles  (motor  points)  may 
directly  under  certain   favorable  conditions  pass  over  into 


362  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

the  sensory  points  of  the  same  muscle  fibers  without  caus- 
ing them  to  contract  at  all, — and  then  pass  on  from  these 
sensory  points  in  the  usual  manner.  If  that  is  true  in  cer- 
tain cases,  these  muscle  fibers  would  act  simply  as  if  they 
were  higher  centers  within  the  nervous  system.  Nothing  is 
thus  far  definitely  known  about  this  question. 

In  the  development  of  generalized  (abstract)  nervous 
functions  an  enormous  step  in  advance  is  made  when  man- 
kind invents  script.  The  written  language  can  accomplish 
much  that  is  denied  the  spoken  language.  First,  it  enhances 
the  preservation  of  the  Other-One's  generalizations  for  his 
own  later  use.  Secondly,  it  removes  practically  all  the 
limits  of  space  and  time  from  mutual  signaling  among  sev- 
eral individuals,  and  therebv  also  removes  all  limits  from 
placing  one  individual's  generalizations  at  the  disposal  of 
other  individuals,  thus  saving  them  in  the  case  of  innumer- 
able generalizations  the  time  necessary  for  their  invention. 

As  to  the  preservation  of  any  generalization  for  the  in- 
dividual's own  use.  it  is  plain  that,  as  long  as  generaliza- 
tion is  mediated  only  by  the  spoken  language,  it  depends 
exclusively  on  the  properties  of  his  own  nervous  system. 
Just  so  long  will  the  generalization  persist,  as  a  path  of  low 
resistance,  established  by  the  speech  function,  leads  from 
the  sensory  points  of.  say.  hunger  to  a  common  central 
point,  and  another  one  from  a  common  central  point  to 
that  vast  number  of  responses  previously  indicated.  But 
such  a  path  of  low  resistance  can  continue  to  exist  only  if 
it  is  constantly  re-established,  so  to  speak ;  for  we  know 
that  a  path  whose  resistance  has  been  lowered  by  individual 
experience  tends  to  resume  gradually  its  original  high  re- 
sistance.   "The  experience  is  forgotten." 

After  the  individual  has  acquired — by  a  simple  replace- 
ment of  response — to  the  sight  of  the  written  word  the  same 
manifold  possibility  of  responding  as  to  the  sound  of  the 


PRESER^T^NG  THE  GENERALIZATIONS  363 

same  word,  the  time  limit  of  preserving  the  generalization 
depends  no  longer  on  the  delicate  properties  of  his  nervous 
system,  which  is  so  easily  influenced  by  new  exp'^riences  as 
well  as  by  normal  and  abnormal  physical  processes  like 
fatigue  and  disease,  but  on  the  physical  properties  of  the 
material  on  which  he  has  written  the  word.  It  is  true  that, 
quite  recently,  one  has  learned  by  phonographic  records  to 
preserve  the  spoken  word.  But  the  limitations  of  this 
method  are  obvious,  and,  whatever  may  be  its  significance 
for  the  future,  in  the  past  at  least  the  individual  has  had 
to  depend  for  the  preservation  of  his  generalizations  on  the 
written  word,  the  memorandum-book. 

Of  course,  we  use  here  and  in  the  following  the  term 
"word"  in  a  very  wide  sense,  including  therein  all  written 
symbols  of  any  kind,  especially  those  of  mathematics,  even 
all  kinds  of  geometrical  drawings,  and  the  diagrams  and 
symbolic  letters  of  physics,  chemistry,  and  all  other  sciences. 

Secondly,  we  stated  that  by  the  substitution  of  the  written 
for  the  spoken  word  communication  of  the  individual's 
generalizations  to  other  individuals  has  transgressed  almost 
all  limits  of  space  and  time.  As  we  read  a  letter  despatched 
from  the  opposite  side  of  the  globe,  we  learn  what  gen- 
eralizations were  most  powerful  in  the  nervous  system  of 
the  individual  who  signed  the  letter,  at  the  time — weeks 
ago — when  it  was  written.  As  we  peruse  the  book  of  an 
author  long  since  deceased,  we  learn  what  generalizations 
of  his  own  he  thought  desirable  to  communicate  to  his  con- 
temporaries and  those  who  were  to  live  after  him.  As  we 
uncover  the  tombs  of  the  Egyptian  kings,  we  learn  what 
generalizations  chiefly  determined  their  actions  thousands 
of  years  ago,  while  they  were  preparing  for  the  common 
destiny  of  all  individual  life,  for  death. 

Posterity,  opening  our  books,  may  learn  what  generaliza- 
tions affected  our  nervous  system  so  strongly  that,  in  addi- 


364  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

tion  to  using  thern  in  our  individual  life,  we  had  them  re- 
produced in  the  printer's  office.  Thus  all  mankind  becomes 
a  unit,  spatially  and  temporally.  The  individual's  experi- 
ences are  no  longer  useful  to  him  and  to  the  few  people  of 
his  direct  environment  alone.  All  other  individuals  of  the 
present  and  future  may  profit  by  them.  Science  is  the  sum 
total  of  all  those  generalizations  which  the  experience  of 
mankind  has  invented,  selected,  and  collected  as  the  most 
useful  for  the  control  of  the  muscular  response  called  forth 
by  sensory  excitation. 

The  statement  of  the  last  sentence  calls  for  further 
elaboration  since  the  work  of  a  scientist,  especially  to  those 
not  very  familiar  with  it,  seems  to  be  altogether  different 
from  that  of  the  ordinary  man,  say,  the  farmer  plowing  his 
field, — seems  to  belong  to  a  category  of  activity  other  than 
that  of  motor  (muscular)  response  to  sensory  excitation. 

When,  in  the  evolution  of  civilization,  the  writing  of 
words  and  other  symbols  of  generalization  has  firmly  es- 
tablished itself  in  a  sufficiently  large  group  of  men,  in  a 
tribe  or  a  nation,  the  written  symbols  become  a  special  class 
of  important  objects  to  v/hich,  however  artificial  their  ori- 
gin, man  has  to  learn  to  respond  in  order  to  be  successful 
in  the  struggle  for  life,  as  formerly  he  had  to  learn  to 
respond  to  those  objects  alone  which  have  their  origin  in 
nature. 

Moreover,  young  people  selecting  a  class  of  objects  to 
which  to  devote  their  lives  as  specialists  may  now  not  only 
select  from  the  natural  objects,  but  may  choose  even  this 
class.  Their  life  work,  then,  consists  in  responding  to  writ- 
ten symbols  by  writing  symbols  and,  of  course,  also  by 
pronouncing  them,  as  in  oral  teaching.  The  scientist's 
work,  aside  from  experimenting,  that  is,  testing  the  value  of 
his  generalizations  by  skillful  appeals  for  an  answer  to 
nature,  consists  in  combining,  on  writing  paper,  symbols  al- 


GENERALIZATIONS  EIVAL  NATURAL  OBJECTS         365 

ready  existing  into  new  groups  and  inventing  for  each  group 
of  generalizations  which  has  been  demonstrated  by  experi- 
ment to  be  a  useful  combination  of  symbols,  a  new  name, 
that  is,  a  new  symbol  of  generalization. 

All  this  is,  clearly,  motor  activity  in  response  to  sensory 
excitation.  The  only  distinguishing  features  are  these,  that 
the  scientist's  motor  activity  does  not  require  muscles  of 
any  great  strength,  and  that  it  does  require  an  enormous 
amount  of  learning,  of  variations  of  response,  before  it  can 
begin  to  be  of  any  value  to  humanity. 

Let  us  take  an  example  from  the  most  ancient  of  all  the 
sciences,  which,  notwithstanding  its  age,  is  still  and  will 
always  be  the  foundation  of  all  others, — from  arithmetic. 
No  one  doubts  that  the  most  ancient  symbols  for  larger  and 
smaller  groups  of  things  were  diagrams  of  familiar  objects. 
The  Roman  numerals  V  and  X,  for  example,  are  diagrams 
of  one  hand  with  fingers  spread  out  and  of  two  hands  united 
in  opposite  positions  at  their  wrists.  Even  if  these  dia- 
grams, originally,  signified  only  a  quantity  portable  in  one 
hand  and  a  quantity  portable  in  both,  they  would  already 
be  generalizations,  for  many  are  the  things  or  substances 
which  can  be  carried  by  hand. 

If  not  at  once,  at  a  later  period,  these  diagrams  came  to 
signify  five  and  ten.  They  are  then  a  step  further  removed 
from  natural  experience ;  they  have  assumed  to  a  further 
degree  the  meaning  of  a  generalization  (or,  if  you  prefer, 
of  an  abstraction).  When  a  person  counts,  up  to  five  or 
any  other  number,  he  enounces  in  regular  order  one  of  the 
words  of  a  series  which  he  must  previously  have  learned, 
while  he  removes  to  a  position  of  repose,  say,  with  his  finger 
on  the  table,  or  with  his  turning  eye  in  the  subjective  field 
of  vision,  just  one  more  each  time  of  the  objects  counted. 
When  written  symbols  like  our  Arabic  figures  are  substi- 
tuted for  the  spoken  words,  nev/  generalizations  are  made 
possible. 


366  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

What  is  the  significance  of  the  plus  sign?  If  we  write  it 
in  7-f  8,  we  invite  the  reader  to  count  a  group  of  seven 
things  of  his  own  choice  and  another  group  of  eight  as  if 
they  were  only  a  single  group  of  countable  things.  The 
plus  sign,  then,  is  a  generalization  for  any  kind  of  sensory- 
motor  activity  arranging  the  things  as  if  they  were  a  single 
series  and  covniting  them  thus.  The  minus  sign  is  a  gen- 
eralization of  a  similar  kind.  In  7 — 4,  for  example,  we 
express  the  question :  How  many  times  more  do  you  count 
after  4,  till  you  enounce  7?  The  minus  sign,  then,  is  a 
generalization  for  any  kind  of  sensory-motor  activity  ar- 
ranging the  things  of  one  series  as  if  they  were  two  series. 

The  multiplication  sign  presupposes  the  experience  of 
the  plus  sign.  By  writing  ^y^7  we  invite  the  reader  to 
perform  the  work  of  adding  7  plus  7  plus  7.  Modern 
mathematics  has  greatly  increased  the  number  of  such  gen- 
eralizations,— think  only  of  logarithms,  not  to  mention  high- 
er mathematics.  Yet  by  degrees  they  can  all  be  reduced  to 
the  relatively  simple  activity  of  counting  a  series  of  things. 

Another  example  of  a  scientific  generalization  might  be 
taken  from  mechanics.  Remember  the  formula  y2mv',  gen- 
erally used  in  measuring  our  experience  of  "force." 

Man,  in  his  intercourse  with  nature,  learns  how  to  resist 
moving  objects  and  also  how  to  utilize  the  motion  of  objects 
(a  hammer,  for  example)  for  his  own  purposes.  He  learns 
that  he  has  to  exert  more  muscular  energy  if  the  object 
resisted  is  heavier,  and  also  that  his  work  is  more  effective 
if  he  uses  a  heavier  tool.  He  generalizes  his  experiences 
of  resistance  to  objects  and  of  work  by  the  aid  of  objects — 
experiences  to  which  he  has  already  given  the  general  name 
of  "force" — by  pronouncing  the  word  "mass"  in  order  to 
express  their  quantitative  aspect.  In  writing  this  word  he 
abbreviates  it  by  writing  simply  m. 


THE  GENERALIZATIONS   OF   MECHANICS  367 

By  further  experience  man  learns  that  he  has  to  exert 
more  muscular  energy  and  also  that  his  work  is  more  ef- 
fective, if  the  object  in  question  moves  more  quickly.  These 
experiences,  in  addition,  he  generalizes  in  writing  by  unit- 
ing the  symbols  "mass"  and  "velocity"  in  a  single  formula, 
connecting  them  by  a  sign  of  multiplication. 

At  our  present  time,  however,  one  does  not  write  simply 
my,v,  but  m'X-u,  multiplying  v  with  itself.  This  is  done  be- 
cause the  formula  myiv',  in  algebraic  relations  with  other 
formulas  expressing  other  important  experiences  with  heavy 
bodies,  is  in  general  more  convenient.  Still,  this  greater 
convenience  was  only  gradually  recognized  by  scientists. 
Two  hundred  years  ago  the  question  was  debated  in  heated 
controversies  between  the  most  distinguished  scientists 
whether  the  symbol  mv  or  the  symbol  mv'  was  a  more  use- 
ful tool  of  generalizing  human  experience,  or,  as  they  ex- 
pressed it, — talking  as  if  force  were  a  measurable  thing 
among  the  other  objects  in  nature,  instead  of  a  mere  gen- 
eralization invented  by  man — "whether  force  was  propor- 
tional to  velocity  or  to  the  square  of  velocity." 

At  present  the  latter  formula  is  generally  preferred,  but 
slightly  modified  by  the  addition  of  the  factor  1^2 •  This 
simplifies  again  the  algebraic  operations,  for  the  formula 
y2im'  can  be  put  down  directly  as  equal  to  a  certain  other 
very  important  formula  of  mechanics.  The  usefulness  of 
the  equation  thus  formulated  is  the  only  reason  why  our 
scientists  have  become  accustomed  to  using  exclusively  the 
formula  y^mv'  in  their  generalizations  of  the  quantitative 
aspect  of  the  qualitative  generalization  of  "force."  (We 
may  mention,  by  the  way,  that  the  use  of  the  equation  in 
question  gradually  brought  about  a  change  of  name  of  the 
generalization  l^nw,  so  that  it  is  nowadays  called  "work" 
in  the  text-books  of  physics.) 


368  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

Force,  therefore,  is  by  no  means,  as  some  speculative 
philosophers  would  make  us  believe,  a  reality  given  by  na- 
ture, and  truly  measurable  only  by  a  single  formula,  but  a 
mere  abstraction  created  by  man  to  suit  his  needs,  and  ex- 
pressed by  that  combination  of  algebraic  symbols  which 
best  suits  his  needs,  practical  and  theoretical, — an  abstrac- 
tion from  experiences  so  varied  and  complex  that  with- 
out this  generalization  we  could  not  respond  to  the  quantita- 
tive aspect  of  any  one  of  them  with  any  definiteness,  we 
could  not  measure  them. 

In  school  and  all  through  life  we  find  ourselves  compelled 
to  respond  to  traditional  audible  and  visible  symbols  of 
generalization  as  well  as  to  the  situations  presented  by 
nature.  We  gradually  learn  to  respond  to  these  kinds  of 
stimulations  most  successfully :  we  acquire  scientific  habits. 
An  example  of  a  habit  of  responding  to  symbols  of  gen- 
eralization— or  rather  an  example  of  a  large  group  of  such 
habits — is  the  multiplication  table.  To  the  phrase  "seven 
times  nine"  we  at  once  add,  by  habit  acquired,  the  word 
"sixty-three,"  without  having  first  to  do  any  counting,  thus 
saving  a  large  amount  of  time. 

In  a  similar  way  one  learns,  long  before  he  acquires  the 
multiplication  table,  to  combine  words  into  sentences  and 
sentences  into  periods,  and  to  draw  conclusions  expressed 
in  further  sentences,  without  first  having  to  devote  time 
and  energy  to  perceiving  the  things  which  are  meant  by 
those  generalizing  words  and  sentences. 

The  enormous  advantage  of  substituting  this  handling  of 
words  for  the  cumbrous  handling  of  things  is  clear  enough. 
but  the  danger  of  speculation  is  clear  too, — the  danger  of 
combining  words  and  of  thus  drawing  conclusions,  that  is, 
of  expecting  the  things  to  agree  with  the  last  group  of 
words  manufactured  by  us,  for  no  better  reason  than  this, 
that  we  know  our  succession  of  sentences  to  have  been  con- 


HANDLING  WORDS  S69 

structed  according  to  the  rules  of  grammar,  syntax,  and 
logic. 

This  danger  does  not  exist  in  the  case  of  the  multiphca- 
tion  table.  Here,  in  our  most  elementary  quantitative  gen- 
eralizations, things  always  agree  indeed  with  our  conclu- 
sions. But  our  purely  qualitative  generalizations  are  so  in- 
exact that  the  things,  when  we  perceive  them,  often  turn 
out  to  be  quite  different  from  what  we,  guided  only  by  our 
habits  of  handling  words,  expected  to  find  them. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

If  the  Other-One  is  Born  Blind,  or  Deaf, — 
What  Then? 

That  the  loss  of  any  sense  organ  involves  many  diffi- 
culties in  the  Other-One's  life  we  know  from  experience. 
And  that  is  also  to  be  expected  as  soon  as  we  understand 
that  his  life  is  a  continuous  reaction  to  excitations  occur- 
ring in  his  sense  organs.  But  a  detailed  discussion  of  these 
general  difficulties  would  be  out  of  place  in  an  introductory 
text-book  like  this.  It  would  lead  us  into  the  medical  and 
other  sciences. 

A  reason,  however,  for  discussing  here  certain  conse- 
quences of  a  loss  of  certain  sense  organs  is  the  fact  that 
this  loss  may  seriously  interfere  with  the  Other-One's  liv- 
ing as  a  member  of  human  society.  The  signaling  reflexes, 
we  have  seen,  are  of  particularly  great  interest  to  the 
psychologist  because  of  the  role  they  play  in  establishing 
social  relations  among  the  individuals.  While  discussing 
the  relative  value  of  the  visual  and  auditory  signaling  re- 
flexes, we  had  to  point  out  that,  contrary  to  our  first  ex- 
pectation, the  auditory  signaling  reflexes  seem  to  be  more 
significant  than  the  visual  signaling  reflexes.  Keeping  this 
in  mind,  we  no  longer  wonder  at  the  fact — not  statistically 
proved  or  provable,  but  generally  acknowledged — that  deaf 
people  are  more  likely  to  be  unsocial,  morose,  suspicious  of 
their  fellow  men,  than  blind  people.  Of  course,  if  people 
in  adult  life  lose  one  of  these  two  senses,  they  are  during 
the  period  directly   following  the  loss  more  conspicuously 

370 


LOSS  OF  THE  SENSES  371 

affected  by  the  loss  of  sight  than  by  the  loss  of  hearing. 
This  is  natural,  for  the  former  loss  requires  in  general  a 
much  more  profound  change  in  the  manner  of  performing 
one's  daily  routine  work.  But  after  this  adaptation  has 
occurred,  and  the  individual  has  become  to  some  extent  rec- 
onciled to  his  loss,  the  change  in  personal  character  above 
referred  to  as  distinguishing  the  deaf  from  the  blind  is 
obvious  enough  and  is  clearly  the  result  of  the  great  sig- 
nificance of  auditory  signaling  for  social  life. 

But  in  this  book  our  chief  interest  in  the  loss  of  various 
sense  organs  has  its  basis  in  the  fact,  discussed  in  the  last 
chapter,  that  the  Other-One's  supremacy  on  earth  among 
all  the  species  of  animals  depends  on  his  acquisition  of 
language.  Without  his  language  that  feature  distinguishing 
man  from  the  animals,  that  is,  the  use  of  generalization  and 
abstraction,  his  "thoughtfulness,"  would  not  exist.  And  in 
order  to  acquire  language,  all  sense  organs  are  not  of  equal 
importance. 

Having  once  acquired  a  spoken  or  written  language  and 
having  learned  to  use  it  for  generalization  and  abstraction, 
the  Other-One  may  then  lose  his  sense  organs  needed  for 
the  acquisition  of  speech,  or  of  its  equivalent,  script.  And 
still  he  would  continue  to  use  generalization.  It  is  not  the 
adult,  therefore,  who  concerns  us  here  in  this  discussion  of 
the  effect  of  the  loss  of  sight  or  hearing.  It  is  the  child  who 
becomes  blind  before  learning  to  read  and  write  and  the 
infant  who  becomes  deaf  before  learning  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage of  his  family,  who  interest  us  here.  Briefly  speaking 
(but  allowing  for  a  certain  extension  of  the  time  of  loss 
beyond  the  time  of  birth,  as  hinted  at  in  the  last  sentence), 
we  may  ask :  How  dift'erent  will  the  Other-One  be  if  he 
is  born  blind,  or  born  deaf,  or  born  both  blind  and  deaf  ? 


372  PSYCHOLOGY  OP   THE    OTHER-ONE 

The  signaling  reflexes  which  the  Other-One  possesses  are 
far  too  few  and  too  simple  to  serve  as  the  mediating  link, 
studied  in  the  preceding  chapter,  which  establishes  that 
nervous  function  deserving  a  special  name  and  given  the 
name  of  "generalization."  The  Other-One  must  learn  to 
speak,  he  must  acquire  a  relatively  extensive  complex  of 
habits,  "language,"  in  order  to  generalize.  For  acquiring 
language  habits  he  depends  largely  on  "imitative  reflexes," 
since  schools,  in  which  language  is,  or  languages  are,  arti- 
ficially taught,  are  a  very  recent  invention  of  mankind.  In 
spite  of  all  the  vague  glorifications  of  the  "instinct  of  imita- 
tion," man,  as  we  have  convinced  ourselves,  virtually  has 
no  other  imitative  reflexes  than  the  auditory  ones.  Without 
having  the  sense  of  hearing,  therefore,  man  can  not  by  re- 
flexes imitatingly  acquire  a  language. 

If  the  Other-One  is  born  deaf,  he  never  acquires  a  lan- 
guage unless  he  is  sent  to  school.  Being  born  blind,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  not  interfere  with  his  learning  to  speak 
the  language  of  his  people.  The  lack  of  schooling,  there- 
fore, has  a  much  more  profound  effect  on  the  deaf-born 
than  on  the  blind-born.  The  lack  of  schooling  condemns 
the  deaf-born  child  to  remain  intellectually  on  the  level  of 
animals.  When  we  use  here  the  term  "intellectual"  or  "in- 
tellect," we  use  it  as  an  abstraction  referring  to  the  con- 
crete fact  that  a  being  uses  in  his  life,  to  a  larger  or  lesser 
extent,  generalizations  and  abstractions.  He  who  deprives 
a  deaf-born  child  of  schooling,  deprives  him  of  what  makes 
him  a  human  being,  of  his  "intellect."  He  degrades  him 
to  the  level  of  animals.  If  in  a  modern  civilized  state  the 
question  could  be  raised  at  all,  whether  it  is  more  indis- 
pensable to  have  schools  for  the  deaf  or  schools  for  the 
blind,  the  answer  is  easy  to  give.  The  school  for  the  blind 
raises  an  intellectual,  "thoughtful,"  human  being  to  a  mere- 


BLIND  OR  DEAF  373 

ly  higher  level  of  intelligence.  The  school  for  the  deaf 
raises  to  a  human  level  a  being  who  would,  without  it,  re- 
main on  the  level  of  the  animals. 

The  fact  just  stated  has  always  been  recognized  in  human 
tradition.  In  former  centuries,  it  was  customary  to  say, 
on  hearing  of  the  birth  of  a  deaf  child,  that  the  parents 
were  the  unfortunate  possessors  of  a  being  which  had  in- 
herited their  material  form,  but  to  which  the  Creator  had 
refused  a  "soul."  In  other  words,  they  had  an  animal  look- 
ing like  a  man. 

That  people  should  have  expressed  the  expectation  that 
a  being  would  never  in  his  life  use  generalization  and  ab- 
straction, by  saying  that  he  had  been  given  no  "soul,"  would 
strike  us  merely  as  a  rather  ridiculous  kind  of  superstition, 
if  that  manner  of  referring  to  these  unfortunates  had  not 
had  its  serious  practical  consequences.  When  a  being  is  so 
unsocial  as  a  deaf  being  generally  is,  so  unresponsive,  so 
unteachable,  there  is  no  great  inducement  for  his  people  to 
make  the  sacrifices  involved  and  give  him  a  schooling.  But 
since  this  disinclination  of  the  parents  to  the  establishment 
of  a  school  for  their  deaf  children,  or  to  the  appointment  of 
a  tutor  for  a  deaf  child,  was  still  fortified  by  the  use  of  the 
abstraction  "lack  of  a  soul,"  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  educa- 
tion of  the  deaf-born  child  was  something  unheard  of  in 
ancient  and  medieval  education  and  is  not  an  outstanding 
feature  in  the  history  even  of  modern  education.  Who  but 
a  fool,  it  seems,  would  think  of  appointing  a  tutor  for 
animals, — and  deaf-born  children  used  to  be  regarded  as 
animals. 

The  men  who  could  free  themselves  from  tradition,  look 
the  facts  in  the  face,  and  recognize  that  deaf-born  children 
were  as  teachable  as  others,  that  they  merely  had  to  be 
taught  by  diflferent  methods,  may  well  be  counted  among  the 
geniuses  of  mankind.     That  alone,  however,  is  not  the  rea- 


374  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-OXE 

son  why  we  mention  the  names  of  some  of  these  men  be- 
low. We  mention  them  also  because  in  the  history  of  the 
education  of  the  deaf  we  have  a  beautiful  illustration  of  the 
fact,  innumerable  times  repeated  in  human  history  and 
psychologically  interesting,  that  a  vague  rumor  that  some- 
thing apparently  impossible  has  been  done  somewhere  some- 
how, and  that  therefore  it  can  be  done,  has  often  encour- 
aged a  man  to  rediscover  something  independently  and  to 
claim  the  priority  of  the  discovery  quite  honestly,  without 
being  the  first  discoverer. 

It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  discoverer  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  educating  the  deaf-born  was  the  French  priest 
De  I'Epee.  But,  that  almost  exclusively  his  name  is  con- 
nected with  this  discovery,  is  due  only  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  the  first  who,  in  addition  to  instructing  the  deaf,  also 
instructed  those  who  were  willing  to  become  teachers  of 
the  deaf.  And  these  teachers  of  the  deaf  carried  the  name 
of  their  teacher  all  over  the  world  and  made  it  famous. 

The  honor  of  the  first  discovery,  so  far  as  our  present 
knowledge  reaches,  belongs  to  a  Spanish  Benedictine  monk, 
Pedro  Ponce,  called  de  Leon,  who  died  in  1584.  How  this 
discovery  struck  those  contemporaries  who  in  spite  of  the 
insufficient  means  of  spreading  ideas  in  those  times  heard 
of  it,  can  be  seen  from  the  phrases  used,  in  a  book  describ- 
ing the  totality  of  the  work  of  the  Benedictine  order  and 
published  about  1600.  "Our  monk,  fray  Pedro  Ponce  de 
Leon,"  says  the  author,  Antonio  Perez,  himself  a  Bene- 
dictine, "created  that  marvelous  art  of  giving  speech  to  the 
dumb.  Thereby  he  has  won  the  admiration  of  all  who  have 
heard  of  it,  abroad  as  well  as  at  home,  on  account  of  this 
wonderful  display  of  genius.  Yet  he  never  succeeded  in 
instructing  others  in  the  art.  However,  we  know  how  much 
more  difficult  even  than  to  practice  oneself  it  is  to  train 
other  masters  in  one's  profession." 


PONCE  AND  BONET  375 

The  honor  of  being  the  country  of  the  second  discovery 
of  the  art  also  belongs  to  Spain.  And  not  only  this,  but 
also  the  honor  of  the  publication  of  the  first  text-book  for 
giving  this  instruction,  and  an  elaborate  and  very  suitable 
text-book,  too.  In  the  year  1620  appeared  in  Madrid  the 
book  by  Juan  Pablo  Bonet  whose  title  in  literal  translation 
is  "Reduction  of  the  letters, — and  art  of  teaching  the  mute 
to  speak."  The  book  has  been  translated  into  English, 
French,  and  German.  The  rather  curious  title  means  that 
the  author  wants  to  make  clear  that  the  teacher  of  the 
dumb  must  himself  begin  with  acquiring  a  knowledge  of 
phonetics,  because  he  has  to  teach  his  pupils  the  often  vary- 
ing sounds  represented  in  script  by  each  single  letter  of  the 
alphabet.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Bonet  had  heard  it 
rumored  that  someone  somewhere  had  succeeded  somehow 
in  teaching  the  dumb  to  speak.  But  he  honestly  redis- 
covered the  method  and  rightfully  claims  the  honor  of  his 
discovery.  His  first  pupil  was  the  brother  of  a  nobleman, 
the  Constable  of  Castile,  whose  secretary  he  was.  The 
pupil  had  been  deaf  since  the  age  of  two  years. 

Bonet's  book  consists  of  two  parts.  The  first  part  begins 
with  the  history  of  the  art  of  writing  and  gives  an  exposi- 
tion of  phonetics,  a  little  imperfect  from  the  modern  point 
of  view,  but  nevertheless  quite  remarkable.  The  second 
part  discusses  the  causes  of  mutism,  the  auxiliary  use  of 
the  manual  alphabet,  lip  reading,  the  formation  of  the 
separate  sounds  and  their  production  in  series.  He  gives 
a  complete  Spanish  grammar  adapted  to  the  special  needs 
of  the  deaf-mute  pupil,  and  this  part  of  the  book  is  to  be 
used  as  the  regular  text-book  by  the  pupil  as  well  as  the 
teacher.  The  method  is  similar  to  that  which  goes  nowa- 
days under  the  name  of  the  Berlitz  method  of  teaching  for- 
eign languages.  The  text-book  contains  even  a  chapter  on 
arithmetic. 


376  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

Two  further  facts  will  be  mentioned  here  in  order  to 
show  how  advanced  the  thought  of  Bonet  was.  He  uses 
for  the  instruction  of  his  pupils  such  modern  aids  as  a 
flexible  leather  model  of  the  tongue.  And  the  modern  edu- 
cational psychologist  reads  with  astonishment  the  follow- 
ing heading  of  the  tenth  chapter :  "Reason  why  normal 
children  are  so  slow  in  learning  to  read,  and  discovery  that 
this  is  due  to  the  difficulty  which  we  create  by  teaching 
them  the  names  of  the  letters  first." 

In  the  year  1622  another  Spanish  teacher  of  the  deaf, 
Manuel  Ramirez,  became  known  and  claimed  for  himself 
the  discovery  of  the  art  of  teaching  the  dumb  to  speak. 

In  1657  Franciscus  Mercurius  van  Helmont,  son  of  the 
famous  Flemish  physician  and  chemist,  published  a  book 
concerning  the  education  of  the  deaf,  but  concerned  him- 
self only  with  lip  reading. 

In  1660  Wallis,  a  mathematician  and  also  author  of  an 
English  grammar  which  begins  with  an  elaborate  treatise 
on  phonetics,  thought  that  he  was  the  first  inventor  of  the 
art,  having  succeeded  in  teaching  several  deaf-mutes  to 
speak. 

In  1670  an  Italian,  Lana,  claimed  to  be  the  first  to  have 
taught  mutes  to  speak. 

In  1690  the  Swiss  physician  Amman,  who  spent  the  latter 
part  of  his  Hfe  in  Holland,  had  to  treat  a  girl  for  deafness 
and  succeeded  in  teaching  her  to  speak.  In  1692  he  pub- 
lished a  book  "Surdus  loquens"  and,  as  usual  in  these 
cases,  thought  that  he  himself  was  the  first  inventor  of  the 
art. 

In  1748  the  Portuguese  Pereira  became  famous  in  Paris 
as  teacher  of  deaf-mutes.  The  history  of  his  career  is  in- 
teresting. He  happened  to  read  in  a  book  by  the  Benedic- 
tine monk  Feyjoo  a  notice  about  Pedro  Ponce.    Thereupon 


TEAOHEKS  OF   THE  DUMB  377 

he  tried  to  teach  mutes,  succeeded,  and  later  was  praised 
by  many  as  the  first  discoverer  of  the  art. 

In  1761  Ernauld,  of  Bordeaux,  presented  to  the  French 
Academy  of  Sciences  a  communication  in  which  he  men- 
tioned some  previous  teachers  of  deaf-mutes,  but  declared 
himself  the  inventor  of  a  new  method  of  teaching  lip  read- 
ing. He  did  not  use  a  manual  alphabet  at  all,  but  based 
his  instruction  on  Hp  reading.  This  application  of  lip  read- 
ing he  regarded — and  to  a  slight  extent  probably  with  justi- 
fication— as  his  own  contribution  to  the  art  of  teaching  the 
deaf. 

De  I'Epee  published  his  book  in  1776.  He  died  in  1790. 
He  was  the  first  teacher  of  deaf-mutes  who  became  the 
father  of  a  training  school  for  teachers  of  deaf-mutes.  Sev- 
eral teachers  trained  by  him  established  themselves  success- 
fully in  Italy.  Emperor  Joseph  II  of  Austria  sent  the 
Abbot  Storch  to  Paris  in  order  to  import  the  methods  of 
teaching  the  dumb  into  his  dominions.  Another  author  of 
much  merit  concerning  this  phase  of  education,  Andres,  in 
a  letter  written  in  1794  to  the  wife  of  the  Spanish  ambas- 
sador in  Vienna,  characterizes  the  work  of  the  French  priest 
by  calling  it  "unquestionably  the  most  methodical  and  per- 
fect," while  upholding  the  priority  claim  of  his  country- 
man, Pedro  Ponce. 

A  slightly  prolonged  occupation,  like  the  one  to  which  we 
have  just  submitted,  with  this  matter  helps  to  impress  upon 
us  the  enormous  significance  for  the  "human  intellect"  of 
language,  that  is,  of  speech  and  script.  Nothing  can  show 
this  significance  as  clearly  as  the  enthusiasm  of  those  who 
by  one  accident  or  another  were  led  to,  and  by  patience 
succeeded  in,  teaching  the  dumb  to  speak,  transforming  as 
by  a  miracle  animals  into  human  beings.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  it  also  impresses  us  with  the  enormous  difficulty  of 
convincing  the  great  crowd  of  which  humanity  consists,  that 


378  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

herein  lies  the  main  difference  between  animal  life  and 
human  life.  "Do  animals  think?"  is  a  question  often  asked. 
But  few  have  always  been  those  who  could  see  that  this 
was  the  same  question  as  "Do  animals  speak?" 

The  art  of  teaching  the  dumb  to  speak,  once  discovered, 
ought  to  have  spread  thru  the  great  crowd  of  humanity 
like  a  religious  gospel.  It  ought  to  have  become  a  common- 
place at  once,  because  of  the  psychological  implication  of 
the  fact  of  human  intelligence  with  this  art.  But  the  great 
crowd  did  not  see  the  implication.  The  miraculous  art 
satisfied  the  crowd's  curiosity  for  a  few  years  and  was  soon 
entirely  forgotten,  with  the  result  that  the  art  had  to  be  re- 
discovered so  many  times.  Even  modern  psychology,  altho 
it  has  given  considerable  attention  to  language,  is  only  slow- 
ly beginning  to  recognize  that  the  "human  intellect"  is 
human  language,  that  what  is  popularly  called  "mental" 
and  popularly  opposed  to  "physical  or  physiological,"  is 
merely  that  which  in  scientific  psychology  is  found  to  be 
onaracterized  by  consisting  mainly  of  language  functions. 
Compare  "memory"  with  "manual  habits."  In  habits  of 
"remembering"  language  functions  prevail  over  the  func- 
tions of  other  motor  organs.     That  is  the  only  difference. 

We  have  above  mentioned  only  incidentally  the  substi- 
tutes or  surrogates  for  normal  speech  and  script,  invented 
for  the  use  of  those  deprived  of  one  or  both  of  the  higher 
senses.  An  introductory  psychology  is  not  the  place  to  dis- 
cuss details  which  are  mainly  of  technological  importance. 
Let  us  make  only  a  few  remarks  about  them.  The  manual 
alphabet  serves  as  a  surrogate  for  speech.  But  it  is  a  visi- 
ble kind  of  speech  instead  of  an  auditory  one.  It  has  all 
the  general  drawbacks  of  visual  compared  with  audible 
signals.  It  can  not  rely,  either,  on  the  advantage  of  ap- 
pealing to  imitative  reflexes,  which  is  possessed  by  auditory 
stimulations.     The  execution  of  complex  manual  signals  is. 


SUBROGATES  FOR  SPEECa  379 

further,  very  slow  in  comparison  with  the  execution  of 
signals  by  the  vocal  organs.  Nevertheless,  even  the  ac- 
quisition of  nothing  language-like  but  the  "speech"  by  means 
of  the  manual  alphabet  will  raise  a  dumb  person  above  the 
level  of  an  animal,  give  him  a  certain  degree  of  human  in- 
telligence. 

The  raised  script  of  the  blind  serves  as  a  substitute  for 
visible  script.  Its  importance  for  the  intellect  of  the  Mind, 
however,  is  only  relative,  since  the  blind,  possessing  speech, 
possess  thereby  also  the  use  of  generalization  and  abstrac- 
tion without  being  taught  to  read  and  write  raised  script. 
The  intellectual  level  of  an  uneducated  blind-born  person 
is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  an  uneducated  normal 
person,  whereas  the  uneducated  deaf-born  person,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  comparable  to  an  animal. 

Most  difficult,  naturally,  is  the  education  of  those  who 
have  lost  both  the  higher  senses  at  birth  or  not  much  later. 
In  these  cases  signaling  is  possible  only  by  appealing  to  the 
sense  of  touch.  The  first  speech  surrogate  therefore  is 
based  on  writing  a  short  word  with  one's  finger  on  the 
palm  of  the  hand  of  the  person  to  be  educated  and  induc- 
ing him  (since  the  "localizing  reflex"  causes  him  to  imitate 
the  stimulation  only  with  remote  exactness)  to  imitate  by 
writing  thru  habit  on  his  hand  the  same  word  with  his  own 
finger.  Later  the  process  of  education  becomes  more  simi- 
lar to  that  of  the  dumb.  To  what  height  one  can  develop 
the  intellect  even  of  a  person  who  has  lacked  virtually  from 
birth  both  sight  and  hearing,  is  illustrated  by  the  example 
of  our  countrywoman  Helen  Keller,  who  has  become  fam- 
ous even  as  an  author. 

In  this  connection  it  is  well  to  point  out  why  the  senses 
of  sight  and  hearing,  to  which  we  have  repeatedly  referred 
as  the  "higher  senses."  deserve  this  name.  It  is  not  that 
these  sense  organs  or  their  functions  have  any   property 


380  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHEE-OXE 

which  elevates  them  physically,  chemically,  or  biologically 
above  the  other  senses.  They  are  rather  those  senses  which 
can  be  spared  most  readily  without  destroying  the  possi- 
bility of  life.  They  are  higher  only  in  the  sense  that  the 
particular  feature  distinguishing  man  from  animals,  the 
human  intellect,  that  is,  the  nervous  function  of  general- 
ization and  abstraction,  is  by  far  more  dependent  on  the 
function  of  the  organs  of  sight  and  hearing  than  on  that  of 
the  other  sense  organs.  But  even  this  dependence  is  not 
absolute,  since  the  intellect  can  be  developed,  by  the  in- 
vention and  application  of  the  proper  kind  of  educational 
art,  even  in  those  who  lack  these  two  senses. 

The  higher  senses,  then,  are  simply  those  senses  on  which 
the  development  of  the  intellect  depends  in  the  natural  and 
usual  course  of  events.  These  are  the  senses  which  man- 
kind particularly  needs  for  "being  thoughtful." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

The  Other-One  Walks  in  his  Sleep.  Disturbances  oe 
Personality.   Abnormalities. 

There  are  variations  in  the  Other-One's  customary  mode 
of  reacting  to  stimuli  which  belong  to  a  class  different  from 
that  of  willing  and  learning.  They  are  technically  called 
"symptoms  of  neurosis."  That  is,  they  are  abnormal.  They 
result  from  an  abnormal  or  diseased  condition  of  the  nerv- 
ous system.  Our  chief  interest  in  abnormalities  lies  in 
the  fact  that  they  may  illustrate  some  of  the  normal  func- 
tions hitherto  discussed  in  so  striking  a  manner  that  ex- 
amples from  the  behavior  of  the  Other-One,  as  he  normal- 
ly stands  before  us,  are  not  of  equal  illustrative  value. 

The  layman  thinks,  when  he  thinks  of  psychological  ab- 
normalities, first  and  mainly  of  the  "somnambulist,"  in  liter- 
al translation,  sleep-walker.  The  somnambulist  is  popular- 
ly supposed  to  have  been  disturbed  in  his  sleep  by  the  moon. 
Therefore  he  is  also  called  a  "lunatic."  And  institutions  for 
the  confinement  and  treatment  of  people  suffering  from 
nervous  diseases  are  in  some  regions  even  ofiicially  still 
called  "lunatic  asylums."  A  most  perfect  sample  descrip- 
tion of  the  symptoms  of  a  certain  type  of  nervous  disease 
is  found  in  Shakespeare's  "Macbeth." 

"Since  his  majesty  went  into  the  field,"  the  gentlewoman 
reports  to  the  doctor,  "I  have  seen  her  rise  from  her  bed, 
throw  her  nightgown  upon  her,  unlock  her  closet,  take  forth 
paper,  fold  it,  write  upon't,  read  it,  afterwards  seal  it,  and 
again  return  to  bed;  yet  all  this  while  in  a  most  fast 
sleep." — Shakespeare  here  gives  us  in  the  gentlewoman's 
talk  an  exact  sample  of  the  popular  attitude  in  a  case  like 

381 


382  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHEK-ONE 

this.  The  uncritical  observer  of  the  somnambuhst  always 
exaggerates  when  he  tells  what  he  cbjerved.  "She  is  in  a 
most  fast  sleep."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  do  not  call  that 
sleep  when  the  Other-One  is  so  active  as  one  is  in  writing 
and  sealing  letters.  What  the  gentlewoman  really  ought 
to  say  in  accordance  v^-ith  the  truth  would  be  something 
more  moderate,  like  this :  "Considering  that  we  regard  al- 
most everybody  at  that  time  of  the  night  as  asleep  unless 
he  is  dressed  for  and  doing  special  night  duty,  as  a  watch- 
man's ;  and  considering  further  that  a  minute  before  writ- 
ing she  actually  was  in  bed  and  a  few  minutes  later  she  was 
in  bed  again ;  and  considering  that  she  did  not  say  to  me 
'How  do  you  do,'  as  she  does  when  she  meets  me  ordina- 
rily, but  passed  me  as  if  I  were  a  wooden  pillar;  and  con- 
sidering that  she  treats  us  (speaking  to  the  doctor)  just 
now  with  the  same  slight  attention ;  and  considering  that 
she  talks  now  before  us  of  such  suspicious  things  as  the 
spots  on  her  hands,  and  of  the  unexpectedly  large  quantity 
of  blood  which  the  old  man  had,  and  that  she  rubs  her 
hands  as  if  they  needed  a  cleaning — I  should  say  that  she 
was  not  then  and  is  not  novv'  exactly  what  one  would  call 
'awake  to  the  situation.'  If  we  were  her  enemies,  she 
would  already  have  given  herself  away." 

In  the  popular  (not  recognizable  as  scientific)  psychology 
sleep  is  not  a  purely  relative  amount  of  being  active,  or 
rather  of  being  inactive,  but  is  a  specific  "state  of  the  soul." 
To  the  "popular"  psychologist  the  most  curious  fact  then 
seems  to  be  that  here  a  "soul"  is  found  to  be  "not  fully 
awake"  or  "asleep"  or  "subconscious"  in  a  body  which  is 
not  lying  in  bed,  but  standing  up  and  even  walking  about. 
Therefore  "somnambulism." 

To  the  psychologist  who  is  a  man  of  science  it  makes  no 
great  ditlerence  whether  you  call  that  observation  sleep  or, 
better,  relative  inactivity,  or  give  it  no  name  at  all.     All 


SOMNAMBULISM  3 


PQ 


that  interests  him  is  the  fact  that  the  Other-One's  reactions 
observed  are  reactions  very  unusual  in  such  a  situation. 

Usually  a  person  who  has  his  eyes  open  says  "How  do 
you  do"  when  entering  a  room  in  which  there  are  acquain- 
tances. Lady  Macbeth,  altho  her  eyes  are  open,  addresses 
her  acquaintances  no  more  that  she  would  address  a  piece 
of  furniture.  A  murderer  fearing  discovery  of  his  deed 
ordinarily  abstains  from  loud  comments  on  the  quantity  of 
blood  of  his  victim.  Lady  Macbeth  makes  such  remarks 
in  the  presence  of  others.  What  the  psychologist  observes 
is  that  the  stimuli  are  not  adequate  to  the  reactions,  that 
the  reactions  are  those  which  one  would  expect  of  Lady 
Macbeth  only  in  an  entirely  diflferent  situation.  We  have, 
therefore,  a  case  perfectly  similar  to  that  in  a  previous 
chapter  where  a  man  stands  still  on  a  busy  street  where 
everybody  walks,  and  answers  the  traffic  policeman  "It's 
your  move."    Lady  Macbeth  is  obviously  "preoccupied." 

But  the  difference  between  her  preoccupation  and  that 
which  occurs  in  a  normal  person — as  in  that  chess  enthu- 
siast— consists  in  the  fact  that  normal  preoccupation  rarely 
lasts  more  than  a  few  minutes,  in  exceedingly  rare  cases 
(where  it  becomes  a  "joke")  as  long  as  a  few  hours.  But 
in  a  case  like  that  of  Lady  Macbeth,  in  a  neurosis,  the 
preoccupation  lasts  days,  weeks,  or  months,  and  even  years. 
In  saying  that  it  lasts  so  long  we  do  not  wish  to  be  under- 
stood as  meaning  that  it  lasts  in  unvarying  strength.  There 
may  be  ups  and  downs  in  that  preoccupation.  Neverthe- 
less, it  often  seems  to  be  the  same  preoccupation  after 
weeks  or  months,  having  fluctuated  meanwhile,  but  with- 
out having  been  clearly  interrupted  and  fortuitously  re- 
created. 

If  we  hold  the  contact  improvement  in  the  synapses  of 
any  higher  centers  responsible  for  any  symptoms  of  pre- 
occupation, it  follows  that  these  neuron  terminals  must  have 


384  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

in  these  abnormal  cases  an  inherited  tendency  to  "stick" 
after  having  extended  in  consequence  of  a  nervous  flux 
passing  thru  them.  Normally  they  would  recede  within  a 
few  seconds  or  minutes  after  the  cessation  of  the  nervous 
currents.  These  neurons  in  the  case  of  this  neurosis  seem 
to  have  lost  this  ability  to  recede  again.  The  consequence 
is  that,  whatever  nervous  current  passes  thru  the  nervous 
system,  finds  thru  these  synapses  a  path  more  conductive 
than  it  ought  to  be.  The  result  is  that  certain  reactions 
occur  with  a  frequency  out  of  proportion  to  their  proba- 
bility as  reflexes  or  established  habits. 

One  naturally  asks,  then,  "Is  this  loss  of  ability  on  the 
part  of  neurons  to  withdraw  their  terminal  branches  after 
cessation  of  the  flux  with  the  normal  speed,  restricted  in 
the  individual  to  a  particular  nerve  center?"  The  clinical 
observations  show  that  it  is  not  so  restricted,  but  that  this 
is  an  abnormal  property  of  all  the  higher  centers.  The 
particular  kind  of  preoccupation,  like  "talking  of  blood  and 
wiping  the  hands,"  depends  merely  on  circumstances  (of 
specially  effective  stimulation  applied  under  specially  favor- 
able conditions  of  the  organism).  Under  other  circum- 
stances establishing  a  preoccupation  of  this  patient  other 
reactions  would  have  appeared  as  the  symptoms.  But  the 
tendency  toward  abnormal  preoccupation  is  a  general  tend- 
ency of  the  nervous  system  belonging  to  that  individual. 
Making  use  of  the  ancient  term  "hysteria"  (very  absurd  in 
its  literal  meaning,  which  is  womb  trouble),  this  neurosis 
is  often  pronounced  to  be  a  "tendency  toward  hysterical 
symptoms."     It  is  actually  as  common  in  men  as  in  women. 

Examples  of  the  clinical  observations  referred  to  in  the 
preceding  paragraph  are  the  following,  reported  by  the 
French  psychologist  Pierre  Janet,  to  whom  we  owe  the  most 
elucidating  studies  of  this  matter.  A  lady  forty-three  years 
old  has  terrible  fits   in   which  convulsions    and    bowlings 


ABNORMAL  PEEOCCUPATION  385 

mingle  together  for  fifteen  or  twenty  hours  as  a  reaction 
to  such  simple  stimulations  as  the  mentioning  of  a  calendar 
date  before  her,  as  the  pronunciation  of  the  words  "love," 
"affection,"  "happiness,"  as  a  dog  barking  on  the  street, 
the  sight  of  a  cat  passing  by  on  the  street,  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  words  "dog"  and  "cat,"  and  many  others  to 
which  no  normal  person  would  respond  by  convulsions  and 
bowlings.  It  all  becomes  plausible  when  we  know  her  his- 
tory, in  which  a  certain  event  occurred  in  which  stimuli  of 
this  very  kind  belonged  to  a  total  situation  calling  forth  a 
mixture  of  extreme  disappointment  and  anger  with  fate, 
thus  establishing  preoccupation  in  a  particular  sensory-mo- 
tor direction.  A  dear  friend  had  died.  Only  one  souvenir 
from  him,  an  old  dog,  remained.  Then  the  dog  died,  in  his 
turn,  on  a  carpet.  And  the  lady  lay  down  on  the  carpet 
on  which  the  dog  had  died,  and  remained  there  for  sixty 
days  without  consenting  to  sit  at  table  for  a  meal  or  to  take 
the  usual  care  of  herself.  The  case  is  essentially  the  same 
as  that  of  the  chess  player,  an  extraordinary  readiness  for 
a  certain  kind  of  sensory-motor  function.  Only  every  as- 
pect of  it  is  more  extreme. 

In  another  patient  the  reactions  and  the  stimuli  differ, 
not  because  the  tendency  toward  preoccupation  is  a  differ- 
ent one  by  heredity,  but  because  the  life  history  is  a  differ- 
ent one.  The  sight  of  a  fiame,  sometimes  of  a  match  only, 
brings  about  a  particular  fit  in  a  patient  who  has  been  af- 
fected by  a  conflagration.  And,  as  the  peculiar  power  of 
a  special  stimulus,  so  the  nature  of  the  reaction,  altho  first 
seeming  entirely  irrational,  explains  itself  as  soon  as  the 
patient's  life  history  is  known.  "There's  method"  in  what 
seemed  irrational  madness.  A  patient  presents  an  intense 
tremor  of  the  right  hand.  It  is  finally  discovered  that  the 
tremor  started  from  a  long  continued  practice  in  so-called 
automatic  writing  in  order  to  question  spirits.     The  tremor 


386  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHEE-ONE 

is  nothing  but  the  quick  execution  of  writing  movements. 
Put  a  pencil  in  the  patient's  right  hand,  and  the  tremor  is 
transformed  into  writing.  If  the  poHceman  had  asked  the 
chess  enthusiast  for  a  match,  or  for  the  time,  there  would 
probably  have  been  no  occasion  for  a  joke,  because  there 
would  have  been  no  occasion  for  "method  in  madness." 

A  patient  in  her  nocturnal  somnambulism  makes  a  pecu- 
liar movement  up  and  down  with  her  foot,  makes  also  a 
turning  movement  at  her  right  wrist  and  simultaneously  says 
all  the  time:  "I  must  work,  I  must  work." — One  evening, 
as  a  girl  of  sixteen,  she  had  heard  her  parents  bewail  their 
poverty.  She  was  very  much  moved,  and  from  that  time 
had  at  night  her  "somnambulism."  The  trade  of  the  girl 
was  that  of  making  doll's  eyes,  and,  for  this  purpose,  she 
worked  a  lathe  by  treading  a  pedal  with  her  foot  and  turn- 
ing a  fly-wheel  with  her  right  hand.  If  she  had  only  tossed 
in  bed  as  we  all  do  now  and  then,  we  would  not  call  it 
somnambulism.  But  our  tossing  is  neither  more  nor  less 
mysterious.  Only  our  tossing  would  not  illustrate  such  an 
extreme  case  of  preoccupation. 

A  man  is  paralyzed  on  his  left  side.  He  explains  it  as 
caused  by  a  tremendous  shock.  But  the  real  explanation  is 
abnormally  extended  preoccupation,  for  which  his  nervous 
system  certainly  had  a  congenital  predisposition.  Travel- 
ing by  rail  he  had  done  an  imprudent  thing:  while  the 
train  was  running,  he  had  gotten  down  on  the  outer  step. 
At  that  moment  he  became  aware  that  the  train  was  about 
to  enter  a  tunnel.  It  occurred  to  him  that  his  left  side, 
which  projected,  was  going  to  be  knocked  and  crushed 
against  the  tunnel.  He  swooned  away,  but  happily  at  that 
moment  was  pulled  back  by  others  into  the  carriage.  His 
left  side  was  not  even  grazed.  Nevertheless,  the  muscles 
on  that  side  no  longer  contracted.  The  preoccupation  here 
obviously  consisted  in  the  synapses  leading  every  nervous 


HYSTERICAL  SYMPTOMS  387 

current  which  normally  would  reach  those  muscles,  into  a 
certain  high  nerve  center  whence  it  could  further  distribute 
itself  in  almost  any  motor  direction  rather  than  into  the 
"paralyzed"  muscles. 

That  the  congenital  tendency  of  certain  people  to  suffer 
from  preoccupation  of  an  abnormal  character  exists  in  their 
whole  nervous  system  and  is  not  merely  a  tendency  con- 
fined to  a  part  of  the  nervous  system,  is  proved  by  other 
facts  than  the  definite  relation  found  between  the  special 
sensory-motor  disturbance  and  the  fortuitous  life  history 
of  each  patient.  It  is  also  proved  by  the  transferability  or 
transmutability  of  the  symptom.  It  is  often  easy,  thru  some 
psychological  process  or  other,  to  cause  such  or  such  a  de- 
terminate symptom  to  disappear.  Besides,  the  symptom 
often  disappears  of  itself,  in  consequence  of  an  emotion,  of 
some  surprise,  or  even  without  reason.  But  when  a  symp- 
tom has  disappeared,  especially  when  it  has  disappeared  too 
quickly,  another  neurotic  symptom  often  takes  the  place  of 
the  first.  The  patient  is  "cured"  of  vomiting  and  now  suf- 
fers from  delirium.  He  had  a  contracture  in  the  neck,  a 
stiff  neck,  and  now  has  a  contracture  in  one  hand.  A  man 
had  hysterical  coughing  and  now  has  crises  of  sleep,  sleeps 
a  week  or  longer  continuously.  A  man  had  a  foot  con- 
tractured  and  was  cured  thru  a  somewhat  mysterious  pro- 
cess which  frightened  him.  He  now  can  walk  freely,  but 
has  lost  his  voice.  When,  after  three  months,  his  voice 
returns,  he  has  stomach  trouble  and  abdominal  contractures. 
Another  man  had  contractures  of  the  trunk  and  now,  being 
cured  of  the  first  trouble,  no  longer  responds  to  anything 
acting  on  his  eyes, — he  is  virtually  blind. 

All  this  is  comprehensible.  There  are  several  "preoc- 
cupations," but  owing  to  the  law  of  "deflection,"  which  is 
effective  in  the  neurotic  as  in  the  normal  person,  the  nerv- 
ous current  which  happens  to  be  strong,  prevents  the  other 


388  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

currents  from  reaching  any  considerable  strength  of  flux 
and  thus  keeps  the  other  "preoccupations"  from  developing 
for  the  present  to  any  conspicuous  height.  Any  preoc- 
cupation is  anyway,  as  we  pointed  out,  nothing  constant, 
but  is  fluctuating  in  strength,  in  these  abnormal  as  in 
normal  cases.  But  as  soon  as  any  particular  form  of  the 
patient's  preoccupation  goes  down  in  strength,  there  is  no 
longer  that  deflecting  current,  and  another  particular  pre- 
occupation has  a  chance  to  develop  to  great  height. 

But,  when  we  say  that  this  abnormal  tendency  for  the 
terminal  branches  in  a  synapse  to  "stick"  after  having  ex- 
tended, affects  the  whole  nervous  system  of  the  neurotic 
T)atient,  we  do  not  after  all  mean  exactly  the  whole  nerv- 
ous system.  There  are  undoubtedly  differences  between  the 
lower  and  the  higher  centers.  We  have  already  pointed 
out,  in  speaking  of  normal  preoccupation  (absent-minded- 
ness, as  we  also  called  it),  that  it  is  not  easily  observed  in 
those  who  do  merely  routine  work  consisting  of  reflex-like 
habits.  At  least,  it  never  lasts  in  them  more  than  a  few 
seconds.  For  the  very  same  reason  as  in  those  normal 
cases,  in  these  neurotic  cases  where  there  is  abnormal  pre- 
occupation, the  troublesome  symptoms  occur  in  the  habit 
functions  only,  and  with  the  most  pronounced  frequency 
in  the  very  highest  habit  functions.  The  reflexes  are  vir- 
tually free  from  these  troubles,  and  the  more  so,  the  more 
they  have  preserved  their  original  character  as  reflexes,  the 
less  they  have  become  dependent  on  higher  nerve  centers. 

Among  the  most  extreme  examples  illustrating  that  the 
very  highest  centers  are  those  where  preoccupation  most 
readily  plays  its  role,  are  those  where  "abstractions"  make 
up  the  main  part  of  the  nervous  function.  Invite  the 
Other-One  to  do  something,  to  raise  a  hand,  to  step  for- 
ward, or  anything  much  more  complex,  if  you  wish.  If 
you  succeed,  by  talking  to  him  convincingly    (which  may 


HYSTEEICAL  SYMPTOMS  389 

or  may  not  be  easy),  in  stimulating  in  him  the  nervous 
function  which,  for  want  of  a  briefer  name,  we  call  the 
"abstract  idea  that  this  is  necessary  for  his  religious  salva- 
tion," you  will  be  surprised  how  quickly  he  carries  out  your 
request  that  he  raise  his  hand.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you 
convince  him  of  the  abstract  idea  "that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  hand,"  you  will  be  surprized  with  what  an  ab- 
solutely negative  smile  he  will  refrain  from  raising  his  hand 
at  your  request,  which  then  would  be  senseless.  Every 
nervous  process  would  be  side-tracked,  so  to  speak,  away 
from  the  hand  muscles. 

So  it  happens  that  a  patient  may  be  preoccupied  with 
the  abstraction  "there  is  no  such  thing  as  whistling  on  my 
part."  You  then  observe — and  such  cases  are  not  rare — 
that  your  patient  can  eat,  drink,  speak,  pout,  spit,  and  what 
not,  with  his  lips,  but  he  can  no  longer  whistle  with  them 
altho  he  used  to  do  it  formerly.  Or,  in  a  similar  case,  a 
patient,  while  lying  in  bed,  can  raise  his  legs,  bend  them, 
turn  them,  can  push  your  hands  back  with  his  feet,  can 
lift  you  up  if  you  bear  down  with  all  your  strength  on  his 
knees.  But  put  him  on  his  feet  and  ask  him  to  stand  or 
walk, — and  he  collapses.  His  legs  are  completely  "para- 
lyzed." He  is  preoccupied  with  the  abstraction  "there  is 
no  such  thing  as  walking  on  my  part." 

Reflexes,  however,  are  the  less  interfered  with,  the  less 
they  have  become  modified  into  habits.  For  example,  the 
application  of  a  little  ice  on  the  patient's  fore-arm  brings 
about  the  usual  reflex  response,  the  immediate  contraction 
of  all  the  vessels  of  the  hand.  This  has  never  been  modified 
into  a  habit.  But  the  neurotic  patient,  altho  perfectly 
friendly  toward  you  and  convinced  of  your  best  intentions 
and  his  own  indebtedness  to  your  kindness,  may  entirely 
fail  to  respond  to  your  request  to  make  a  sign  by  words  or 
motions  as  soon  as  you,  having  blind-folded  him,  place  a 


390  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE   OTHER-ONE 

little  ice  on  his  fore-arm.  He  is  there  "anesthetic"  so  far 
as  his  habits  are  concerned,  but  not  with  reference  to  pure 
reflexes.  Preoccupation,  that  is,  the  synaptic  condition 
meant,  does  not  easily  occur  in  these  pure  reflex  paths,  in 
the  lowest  centers. 

Certain  muscles,  then,  as  well  as  certain  sense  organs 
still  are  in  the  service  of  the  reflexes,  while  the  same  sense 
organs  or  muscles  may  no  longer  be  in  the  service  of  many, 
most,  or  perhaps  virtually  all  habits,  because  they  have 
been  enslaved  by  a  few  abstractions.  For  this  reason 
further  facts  become  clear  which  would  otherwise  surprise 
us.  Neurotics  of  the  kind  under  discussion  do  not  suffer 
any  deterioration  of  their  muscles  in  consequence  of  paral- 
ysis. This  deterioration  is  a  serious  matter  in  the  case  of 
paralysis  caused  by  a  lesion  within  the  nervous  system.  The 
paralyzed  muscles,  never  contracting,  gradually  shrink,  are 
absorbed,  and  if  the  nervous  lesion  is  cured  after  months  or 
years,  it  little  helps  the  patient  who  has  lost  the  muscles 
needed.  Most  tragical  are  such  occurrences  in  children 
having  suffered  from  infantile  paralysis,  a  disease  which 
destroys  whole  bundles  of  neurons.  The  unfortunate  pa- 
tients, still  in  their  period  of  growth,  thru  the  indirect  con- 
sequences of  the  nervous  lesion  often  become  cripples  for 
life. 

No  shrinkage  of  the  "paralyzed"  muscles  occurs  in  these 
neurotics.  There  is  enough  muscular  contraction — tho  too 
weak  to  be  observed  or  not  observed  because  occurring 
during  the  night — to  prevent  the  deterioration  of  the  mus- 
cles. The  muscles  are  still  in  the  service  of  the  purer,  little 
modified,  reflexes. 

Anesthesia,  too,  in  all  sense  organs,  when  due  to  a  ner- 
vous lesion,  has  its  serious  indirect  consequences.  For  ex- 
ample, if  the  limb  of  an  animal  is  made  anesthetic  by  cut- 
ting certain  nerves,  this  limb,  quite  intact  at  first,  can  not 


HYSTERICAL  SYMPTOMS  391 

be  preserved.  It  is  not  long  in  becoming  covered  with 
sores,  and  little  by  little  the  animal  itself  bites  it  off.  There 
are  patients  who  complain  that  their  hands  are  constantly 
burned  or  wounded.  They  are  not  able  to  avoid  injuries. 
They  have  a  spinal  lesion  which  makes  them  insensible  to 
cold  and  heat.  Where  the  "anesthesia"  is  merely  a  symp- 
tom of  abnormal  preoccupation,  such  indirect  troubles  are 
not  likely  to  occur.  The  reflexes  still  protect  the  patients 
to  a  high  degree. 

The  difference  between  reflexes  and  habits — the  function- 
ing of  lower  and  higher  centers — may  lead  to  consequences 
very  ridiculous  or  very  tragical  according  to  the  circum- 
stances and  the  ability  of  those  dealing  with  the  patient  to 
understand  his  case.  Take  the  following  example.  A  pa- 
tient is  anesthetic  (thru  preoccupation)  on  one  side  and 
has  normal  sensibility  on  the  other.  We  blind-fold  him  and 
pinch  him  on  one  side,  and  he  tells  us  where  we  pinched 
him.  We  pinch  him  on  the  other  side,  and  he  does  not 
tell  us  where  we  pinched  him.  But  since  his  original  re- 
flexes are  not  destroyed,  we  can  build  up  a  new  habit, — and 
perhaps  thru  the  medium  of  higher  centers  which  happen 
to  be  little  affected  by  the  existing  preoccupation.  We  re- 
quest him,  we  persuade  him,  to  say  "Yes"  when  he  feels 
and  to  say  "No"  when  he  does  not  feel.  This  is  a  habit 
formation,  but  of  the  kind  of  "quick  learning"  which  we 
call  "willing."  If  the  patient  is  a  little  simple  minded,  not 
intellectual,  we  succeed.  The  new  habit  happens  to  be  free 
from  the  interference  of  the  preoccupation ;  and  whenever 
we  touch  the  "anesthetic"  side,  the  patient  says  "No." 

The  observer  ignorant  of  psychology  will  then  show  little 
patience  with  that  patient.  "He  is  no  patient  at  all,"  he  will 
say,  "he  is  an  habitual  liar  or  pretender.  A  person  who 
tells  us  that  he  feels  nothing  when  he  is  pinched  on  a  cer- 
tain  spot  and  yet  says  "No"  in  response  to  being  pinched, 


392  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHEK-ONE 

while  blind-folded,  on  that  spot,  is  a  person  who  lies  to 
us."  The  non-psychologist  does  not  understand  that  these 
are  two  different  habits,  of  which  one  may  well  suffer  from 
the  preoccupation  of  the  patient  and  the  other  not.  Of 
course,  in  a  person  of  high  intellect  the  whole  experiment 
is  not  likely  to  succeed,  or  is  likely  to  succeed  only  a  short 
time,  since  the  new  habit  will  quickly  fuse  with  the  old 
habit.  The  intellectual  person  "will  see  the  nonsense  of  the 
request."  But  what  succeeds  in  others,  may  succeed  in 
him  if  the  conditions  become  more  complex.  All  thru  the 
history  of  medicine  the  accusation  goes  that  hystericals  are 
habitual  liars.  An  hysterical  person  may  be  a  liar  just  as 
a  non-hysterical  person  may  be  a  liar.  But  he  should  not 
be  regarded  as  a  liar  because  he  is  hysterical  and  ought  not 
to  suffer  the  moral  contempt  of  others  on  account  of  being 
ill.  Tragical  illustrations  belonging  to  the  same  category 
are  plentiful  in  the  application  of  the  criminal  law,  if  one 
studies  the  history  of  the  criminal  law  from  this  point  of 
view. 

The  case  of  insufficient  condensation  previously  discussed 
in  the  case  of  discrimination  on  the  skin  can  be  referred 
to  here.  We  would  object  if  someone  would  call  us  a  liar 
because  we  say  that  what  he  placed  on  our  skin  "feels  like 
one  point  and  yet  feels  like  two,"  as  subjects  not  infre- 
quently are  heard  to  say  in  such  an  experiment. 

We  have  pointed  out  in  a  previous  chapter  certain  other 
laboratory  experiments  in  which  we  tend  to  react  unreason- 
ably. In  stereoscopic  vision  we  may  say,  "I  see  two  pencils 
and  I  also  see  that  the  pencil  is  farther  than  the  finger." 
We  would  object  if  someone  would  tell  us:  "You  are  a 
liar,  for  seeing  the  greater  distance  of  the  pencil  is  a  sub- 
stitute for  seeing  it  double.  You  can  not  see  the  replacing 
thing  and  the  replaced  thing  at  the  same  time." 


HYSTERICAL  SYMPTOMS  393 

In  the  same  previous  chapter  we  mentioned  one  further 
reason  (among  innumerable  actual  reasons)  why  hysterical 
patients  are  exposed  to  being  wrongly  regarded  as  insin- 
cere. In  that  former  case  the  trouble  was  due  to  failure  of 
the  eyes  to  move  as  incessantly  as  they  normally  do.  Such 
failure  may  result  from  drugs.  The  "double  vision"  of 
the  alcohol  intoxicated  person  is  proverbial.  But  stiffness 
of  limbs  or  organs,  "contractures,"  have  been  mentioned 
as  common  symptoms  of  the  neurosis  of  preoccupation.  If 
the  eyes  are  motionless  from  the  latter  cause,  such  troubles 
as  those  just  mentioned  become  a  reality.  Another  result 
of  lack  of  motion  of  the  eyes  deserves  to  be  mentioned  in 
this  connection.  The  somnambulistic,  hysterical,  patient 
often  tells  us  that  he  sees  people  surrounded  by  an  "aura" 
or  that  he  sees  ghosts.  We  can  see  the  aura  too  if  we  stare 
at  a  person  long  enough ;  but  it  is  difficult  for  a  normal 
person  to  do  that.  These  are  nothing  but  unintended  and 
uncomprehended  experiments,  made  by  ignorant  people,  in 
simultaneous  and  successive  visual  induction.. 

We  owe  it  to  Janet  more  than  to  anyone  else  to  have 
made  it  clear  that  the  state  of  hypnosis  is  nothing  but  a 
state  of  abnormal  preoccupation  like  those  described  above, 
only  artificially  and  intentionally  produced  instead  of  re- 
sulting from  an  accident  in  life.  As  is  to  be  expected,  peo- 
ple differ  greatly  in  the  ease  with  which  they  can  be 
hypnotized.  Some  have  a  nervous  system  whose  synapses 
greatly  predispose  the  owner  to  becoming  preoccupied  with 
affairs  of  little  intellectual  significance.  We  then  call  them 
hypnotized  or  hysterical.  If  their  affair  is  a  highly  intel- 
lectual one  (think  of  the  "absent-minded  professor")  and 
the  preoccupation  results  from  intense  normal  work  and 
not  from  a  congenitally  abnormal  nervous  system,  we  do 
not  call  them  cither  hypnotized  or  hysterical.  But  the  cases 
are  essentially  the  same. 


394  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHEK-ONE 

The  physician  Robert  Mayer,  famous  in  the  history  of 
science,  ran  into  a  friend's  house  without  knocking  at  the 
door,  exclaimed  "It  is  true,  it  is  true,"  and  would  not  listen 
to  an}i:hing  for  a  long  time.  His  friend  thought  that  Mayer 
had  gone  insane ;  he  had  entirely  forgotten  that  many 
weeks  before  they  had  discussed  the  question  whether 
water  in  a  bottle  could  be  warmed  by  merely  shaking  the 
bottle,  and  that  he  himself  had  rejected  that  idea  as  absurd. 
But  Mayer  continued  to  be  occupied  by  that  same  question. 

Any  change  in  the  Other-One's  habits  may  be  called  a 
change  in  the  Other-One's  personality.  The  reaction  after 
every  process  of  willing  or  learning  is  a  symptom  of  a 
change  in  his  personality.  Where  the  change  of  habit  is 
profound  and  abnormal,  we  speak  of  a  disturbance  of  the 
personality ;  even  of  the  splitting  of  a  personality  in  those 
cases  where  the  change  periodically  recurs.  But  there  is  no 
essential  difference  between  the  most  astonishing  splitting 
of  a  personality  and  the  simplest  hypnotic  or  somnambulistic 
performance.  And  in  the  description  of  all  these  cases  such 
terms  as  the  "division  of  a  soul"  into  parts,  a  "conscious," 
a  "subsconscious,"  a  "coconscious,"  etc.,  one,  are  better 
avoided.  That  such  terms  are  so  popular,  is,  of  course, 
due  to  the  fact  that  even  those  people  are  able  to  use  them 
glibly  in  their  speech  who  have  never  devoted  time  and 
energy  to  a  serious  study  of  those  problems  of  human  be- 
havior which  fall  within  the  province  of  the  natural  sci- 
ences. 

Abnormal  nervous  functions  of  any  kind  interest  us  in 
an  introductory  text-book  of  psychology  only  in  so  far  as 
they  illustrate  the  normal  anatomical  and  physiological 
properties  of  the  nervous  system.  That  property  of  the  sy- 
napse which  leads  to  preoccupation  has  already  been  illus- 
trated by  abnormalities.  The  other  normal  anatomical  and 
physiological  properties  of  the  nervous  system  are  not  so 


ABNORMALITIES    OF    THE  NERVOUS    SYSTEM         305 

strikingly  illustrated  by  abnormalities  and  there  is,  therefore, 
less  reason  for  discussing  the  other  abnormalities.  It  is 
worth  while,  nevertheless,  to  enumerate  again  all  the  vari- 
ous anatomical  and  physiological  properties  of  the  nervous 
system  which  form  the  basis  of  the  systematic  description 
in  this  book  of  the  Other-One's  life  activities,  and  to  point 
out  what  abnormalities  may  result  from  them  in  conse- 
quence of  bad  heredity  or  of  pathological  conditions  aris- 
ing during  life. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  being  born  with  an  ana- 
tomical deficiency  of  reflex  paths  would  live  long.  That 
anatomical  possibility,  therefore,  need  not  concern  us  psy- 
chologists much.  But  a  human  being  may  be  born  with  a 
deficiency  in  its  possible  equipment  with  higher  centers  and 
continue  to  live.  Indeed,  we  are,  perhaps,  all  born  with 
such  a  deficiency.  The  result  may  be  either  the  one  or  the 
other  or  both  of  the  two  abnormalities  mentioned  present- 
ly, which  are  so  common  that  we  simply  call  them  indi- 
vidual differences. 

Higher  centers  have  a  great  importance  for  the  concerted- 
ness  of  the  functioning  of  certain  reflexes.  We  gave  these 
concerted  reflexes  the  name  of  instincts.  A  congenital  de- 
ficiency in  a  person's  equipment  with  higher  centers  in  a 
certain  region  of  the  brain  might  thus  be  regarded  as  the 
cause  of  a  weakness  of  certain  instincts  which  in  other  in- 
dividuals may  be  strong.  But  let  us  remember  that  the  con- 
certedness  of  most  human  actions  is  not  congenital  at  all, 
but  acquired  during  life. 

We  remember,  secondly,  that  in  order  to  acquire  a  par- 
ticular habit,  we  must  first  of  all  have  that  particular  "long 
path."  In  the  reduction  of  the  resistance  of  that  path  con- 
sists the  formation  of  that  habit.  Now.  we  know  that  one 
person  acquires  easily  only  these  habits,  another  person 
easily  only  those  habits.    The  chief  source  of  the  individual 


396  PSYCHOLOGY  OF    THE    OTHER-ONE 

difference  is  undoubtedly  the  congenital  anatomical  differ- 
ence. If  the  Other-One's  nerve  centers  in  those  regions 
in  which  the  reflexes  in  question  have  their  paths,  are  only 
poorly  equipped  with  long  paths,  then  those  particular  re- 
flexes can  be  modified  into  habits  only  with  difficulty,  that 
is,  thru  mediation  of  long  paths  too  long  in  the  first  in- 
stance. That  must  be  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  individual 
differences. 

The  person  who  is  born  with  a  general  deficiency  in  his 
equipment  with  higher  centers,  the  microcephalic  person, 
for  example,  who  has  very  little  brain  substance,  is  a  born 
idiot.  But  we  are  all  of  us  in  a  relative  sense  born  idiots. 
There  are  sensory-motor  functions  which  we  can  not  easily 
acquire  in  perfection,  tho  we  see  some  others  succeed  in 
them. 

Very  important  for  acquiring  and  retaining  habits  is  the 
degree  of  the  positive  and  of  the  negative  susceptibility  of 
the  neurons.  There  are  undoubtedly  great  congenital  dif- 
ferences in  this  respect  between  individuals.  Some  per- 
sons learn  everything  that  they  learn  at  all,  very  quickly. 
Others  learn  slowly,  needing  more  repetitions.  But  one 
must  not  think  in  connection  with  the  speed  of  learning 
that,  whenever  a  person  learns  something  slowly,  the  sus- 
ceptibility of  his  neurons  is  small.  He  may  learn  slowly 
because  he  "understands"  slowly,  because  he  lacks  a  good 
anatomical  equipment  of  certain  higher  centers  especially 
implicated  and  has  to  rely  on  very  indirect  "long"  (too 
long)  paths.  The  greatest  difficulty  in  interpreting  the  re- 
sults of  experiments  in  human  or  animal  behavior  results 
from  the  fact  that  they  rarely  are  based  (perhaps  rarely 
can  be  based)  on  a  preliminary  analysis  of  the  nervous 
functions  involved.  It  is  clear  that  an  observed  speed  of 
learning,  for  example,  may  be  the  outward  sign  of  any  one 
or  more  of  several  properties  of  the  nervous  system. 


ABNORMALITIES    OF   THE  NERVOUS    SYSTEM         397 

We  saw  that  deflection  is  a  very  important  nervous  func- 
tion. But  it  does  not  seem  plausible  that  deflection  as  such, 
in  general,  can  be  stronger  in  one  individual  than  in  an- 
other. Indirectly,  thru  anatomical  causes,  deflection  among 
particular  nervous  currents  may  be  weak  in  a  particular 
person,  because  there  can  be  no  deflection  without  a  certain 
"contact"  or  relatively  close,  not  too  indirect,  connection  of 
the  paths  of  the  current  to  be  deflected  and  the  deflecting 
current. 

With  respect  to  shortening  a  long  path  after  its  resist- 
ance has  been  reduced,  there  is  a  possibility  of  congenital 
individual  dift'erences.  Unless  the  individual  has  undevel- 
oped neurons  existing  in  the  region  where  a  short-circuit- 
ing might  occur,  no  shortening  of  the  path  is  possible. 

We  were  discussing  disturbances  of  the  personality  and 
now  return  briefly  to  that  problem.  We  must  ask,  now, 
what  influences  occurring  during  life  might  change  a  per- 
son in  the  same  or  a  similar  way  as  a  different  constitu- 
tional inheritance  would  have  made  him  a  dift"erent  person. 

With  reference  to  the  synapse,  it  seems  that  great  nervous 
fatigue  and  also  certain  drugs  aggravate  a  natural  predis- 
position for  abnormal  preoccupation.  Hysterical  symptoms 
and  a  changed  personality  often  make  their  first  appearance 
after  exhaustion  or  intoxication. 

Anatomical  interferences  are  easily  understood.  A  wound, 
say,  the  passing  of  a  bullet  thru  the  head,  or  an  inflamma- 
tory disease,  or  a  breaking  down  of  some  (not  necessarily 
all  or  most)  cells  thru  age,  may  completely  destroy  cer- 
tain nervous  paths.  The  effect  is,  of  course,  then  of  the 
same  kind  as  if  it  were  an  inborn  anatomical  deficiency. 
An  individual  may  not  be  originally,  but  may  become  at  a 
certain  time  in  his  life,  idiotic,  demented,  in  a  more  or  less 
relative  sense.  If  we  can  still  notice  that  he  formerly  ac- 
quired an   "intellect,"  but   that  that   acquisition   no   longer 


398  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   THE    OTHER-ONE 

functions  properly,  it  is  customary  to  say  that  lie  has 
"paranoia,"  tb.at  '"his  reason  goes  astray." 

On  the  other  hand,  an  inflammatory  disease,  or  natural 
old  age  decay,  or  a  poison  created  somewhere  in  a  diseased 
part  of  the  body  and  carried  by  the  blood  thru  the  nervous 
system,  or  a  drug  taken  into  the  body  and  acting  on  the 
nervous  system,  may  not  destroy  the  substance  of  the 
neurons,  but  may  alter  them  so  that  they  may  gain  or  lose, 
permanently  or  temporarily,  in  conductivity ;  or  so  that  they 
lose  all  or  much  of  their  susceptibility,  or,  maybe,  have 
more  of  it.  Particular  disturbances  of  the  personality  of 
the  individual  must  result.  Tl.e  change  in  conductivity 
must  make  certain  reactions  uncommonly  frequent  and 
strong,  or  uncommonly  rare  and  weak.  This  may  occur 
alternately,  as  in  manic-depressive  insanity.  The  change  in 
susceptibility  must  make  the  individual  quicker  or  slower 
in  "learning"  and  "vv-illing." 

Epilepsy,  which  in  its  extreme  form  shows  itself  in  con- 
vulsions, may  be  an  abnormal  general  conductivity  of  the 
nervous  tissue,  breaking  forth  momentarily  and  subsiding 
again  quickly.  Instead  of  this  or  that  muscle  contracting, 
all  contract  in  an  extreme  degree  for  the  time  being. 

Disturbances  of  personality  interest  us  especially  as  illus- 
trating normal  nervous  properties  and  functions.  But  they 
can  themselves  be  understood  only  if  one  has  a  clear  idea 
of  the  normal  function  of  the  nervous  system  in  the  whole 
living  body.  Otherwise  abnormal  psychology  is  a  mere  col- 
lection of  curiosities. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

The  Psychology  of  the  Other-One  and  the  Sciences 
Other  than  Psychology. 

Science  is  one,  intrinsically  undividable,  whole.  That  is, 
all  divisions  of  it  are  arbitrary,  fortuitous,  due  to  the  limi- 
tations of  one  person's  energy  and  interest.  The  man  of 
science  who  is  asked  to  define  a  particular  science  and 
justify  its  separation,  never  feels  satisfied  with  his  own 
answer. 

When  a  university  man  and  a  man  engaged  in  a  trade  or 
business  who  perhaps  has  never  attended  the  high  school 
happen  to  get  acquainted  on  the  street,  in  a  store,  in  a  rail- 
road car  or  a  similar  place,  the  question  is  usually  asked : 
"What  do  you  teach?"  And  after  the  teacher  has  answered 
it,  the  next,  almost  inevitable,  question  is :  "What  is  that  ?" 
And  then  we  have  to  give  an  answer  which  we  really  dis- 
approve of  and  even  feel  ashamed  of  because  we  know 
that  it  is  unclear.  But  we  give  it  nevertheless  because  we 
know  that  a  clear  answer  would  be  a  whole  college  course ; 
and  evading  the  answer  altogether  would  seem  discour- 
teous.    So  we  speak  out. 

"All  about  the  earth,"  says  the  geologist.  "All  about 
sound  and  light  and  electricity,"  says  the  physicist.  "All 
about  animals  and  plants,"  the  biologist.  "All  about  the 
soul,"  the  psychologist.  What  else  could  he  say  in  that 
situation  ? 

What  troubles  the  psychologist  in  giving  the  answer  is 
this,  that  he  is  really  in  no  more  special  manner  interested 
in  the  soul  than  other  people  who  are  not  psychologists. 

(399) 


400  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

But  what  can  he  do  when  he  has  to  give  a  brief  answer? 
It  does  not  help  him  if,  instead  of  "All  about  the  soul"  he 
says :  "I  teach  all  about  the  mind."  The  majority  of  modern 
progressive  psychologists  would  deny  that  as  psychologists 
they  are  particularly  interested  in  the  mind,  in  mentality, 
in  consciousness,  or  whatever  synonym  of  "soul"  you  choose. 
That  period  in  the  history  of  psychology,  when  those  terms 
stood  in  the  center  of  discussion,  is  passing  away,  never  to 
return. 

In  recent  years  men  have  lamented  (using  an  expression 
which  sounds  like  a  joke,  but  is  meant  as  a  serious  com- 
plaint) that  psychology  has  "lost  its  mind."  Just  as  a  fu- 
neral oration  is  fair  testimony  that  the  man  in  whose  honor 
it  is  spoken  is  dead,  so  this  complaint  is  fair  testimony 
that  psychologists  are  no  longer  concerned,  chiefly,  with 
the  mind. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  what  is  nowadays  technically 
called  psychological,  would  appear  often  in  the  language 
of  a  hundred  years  ago  the  very  opposite,  the  unpsycholog- 
ical.  Inasmuch  as  we  all,  even  the  professional  psychol- 
ogists themselves,  still  live  in  the  general  literary  atmos- 
phere of  our  ancestors  of  a  hundred,  and  even  hundreds,  of 
years  ago,  a  discussion  of  the  fact  stated  in  the  preceding 
sentence  is  desirable. 

The  old,  and  still  popularly  accepted,  meaning  of  the 
word  "psychological"  is  de<-ived  from  the  literal  meaning 
of  the  Greek  word  "psyche,"  that  is,  soul.  Unless  you  can 
or  will  mention  a  soul,  you  would  then  not  consider  the 
matter  as  "psychological."  Out  of  such  general  questions 
arise  in  many  instances  specialized  questions  which  thru- 
out  the  history  of  mankind  have  puzzled  the  lawyers  and  the 
legislators,  and  naturally  even  more  the  theologians, — 
such  questions  as  this,  whether  the  unborn  child  has  a  soul, 
or  wheLhcr  the  ■"infant,"  tlic  net  }c't  speaking,  child  has  a 


HISTORY  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  401 

soul.  Think,  for  example,  of  the  untold  misery  that  has 
been  brought  over  countless  human  beings  by  answering  in 
the  one  rather  than  in  the  other  way  the  question,  whether 
the  mother  drowning  her  newborn  baby  has  committed  mur- 
der of  another  soul  or  a  partial  suicide  of  her  own  soul 
or  neither.  Or  the  question  whether  the  unbaptized  soul 
of  the  infant  goes  to  hell,  an  impossibility  in  case  the  infant 
has  no  soul  yet.  We  are  beginning  to  think  more  and  more 
lightly  of  questions  like  these,  which  were  a  heavy  burden 
to  the  conscience  of  our  ancestors.  How  has  this  change 
come  about,  in  popular  thinking,  and  even  more  pronounced- 
ly in  the  thought  of  men  of  science  ? 

History  is  one  of  the  social  sciences.  To  the  naive  thinker, 
however,  history  is  the  science  which  records  the  deeds  of 
individual  great  men.  History  is  then  chiefly  a  record  of 
the  deeds  of  heroes,  of  prophets,  of  kings.  Remove 
Achilles,  Agamemnon,  and  the  other  names  of  heroes  from 
the  IHad.  What  would  be  left  ?  Remove  the  name  of  Christ 
from  the  history  of  the  Church.  What  would  be  left?  To 
the  naive  thinker  history  is  the  product  of  the  whirling 
processes  going  on  in  the  individual  great  soul.  Human 
society  is  both  the  clay  which  is  being  moulded  by  such  a 
soul  and  the  tool  by  means  of  which  the  particles  of  that 
clay  are  pushed  forward  by  that  great  soul.  The  only 
really  interesting  thing  is  the  great  soul  that  does  it. 

It  used  to  be  customary  to  refer  to  the  view  opposing 
this  naive  one  by  the  curious  phrase  of  a  materialistic  view 
of  history.  This,  however,  is  only  an  example  of  what  we 
find  to  be  generally  true :  the  modern  psychological  view 
in  every  one  of  its  applications  has  had  to  submit  to  being 
branded,  sometimes  by  friends,  sometimes  by  foes,  as  the 
materialistic,  that  is,  seemingly,  the  entirely  unpsychological 
view  of  humanity.  There  are  many  reasons  for  this  mis- 
branding. 


402  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

For  example,  it  was  concluded  that  the  world,  if  it  was 
not  controlled  by  souls,  must  be  controlled  by  the  stomach 
and  sex  organs,  by  hunger  and  love,  as  Goethe  said  in  a 
little  poem,  and  that  the  complete  development  of  this 
principle  would  lead  to  the  glorification  of  riotous  living  and 
self-indulgence.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  materialistic  view 
of  history  is,  or  should  be,  something  very  different.  It 
simply  regards  history  as  the  mutual  reaction  of  groups  of 
organisms, — organisms  which  are  equipped  by  Nature,  not 
only  with  digesting  and  propagating  functions,  but  with 
equally  fundamental  altruistic  functions.  These  latter  func- 
tions— call  them  reflexes,  instincts,  or  what  not — establish 
the  very  grouping  of  the  organisms.  Human  societies  can 
thus  be  understood  as  originating  from  natural  laws, — not 
in  the  sense  of  groups  of  souls  tho,  but  in  the  sense  of  groups 
of  organisms.  Accepting  this  view,  we  readily  understand 
why  the  trend  of  history  is  in  the  direction  of  democracy. 

Let  souls  (of  which  we  never  experience  any  but  our 
own)  be  as  different  in  degree  and  kind  as  a  despotic  mon- 
arch is  apt  to  imagine  them  to  be.  Human  organisms — that 
we  know  by  experience  and  therefore  cannot  imagine  other- 
wise— have  more  likenesses  than  differences.  The  proof  is 
easy.  Fill  a  museum  of  human  life  with  the  specimens  of 
the  human  race  that  are  for  all  practical  purposes  alike.  You 
cannot  do  it.  No  museum  would  be  large  enough.  But  you 
can  place  in  a  museum,  for  comparison,  a  Darwin  and  an 
idiot,  or  a  man  seven  feet  tall  and  a  negrito  four  feet  tall. 
It  is  the  differences  which  we  exhibit  in  museums  because 
the  differences  are  rare.  In  real  world-wide  human  life 
the  differences  among  individuals  are  entirely  swamped  by 
their  likenesses.  To  him  who  accepts  the  scientific  view 
that  human  society  is  a  group  of  organisms,  it  is  an  absurd 
proposition  to  divide  even  as  small  a  group  as,  say,  a  hun- 
dred into  only  two  classes,  placing  ninety-nine  in  the  one 


CRIMINOLOGY  AND   PSYCHOLOGY  403 

the  subjected  class,  and  a  single  member  in  the  other,  the 
governing  class.  No  considerable  number  of  individual 
organisms  can  ever  live  depending  on  the  accidents  of  the 
life  of  one.  With  souls  that  may  be  different;  but  in 
science  souls  no  longer  play  their  former  role. 

We  spoke  of  history.  Let  us  speak  of  other  social 
sciences.  Modern  criminology  would  never  have  come  into 
existence  if  our  psychological  thinking  had  not  passed  from 
its  former  stage,  during  which  mankind's  very  proper  in- 
terest in  Man  was  mainly  an  interest  in  his  soul,  to  the 
modern  stage  where  our  psychological  interest  turns  to  the 
functioning  of  man  as  an  organism.  The  old-fashioned 
idea  of  a  crime  is  that  of  an  interference  with  one  soul's 
independence  by  another  soul.  The  proper  punishment 
then  consists  in  pushing  the  latter  soul  as  far  to  starboard 
as  it  arbitrarily  pushed  the  former  to  larboard.  Thus  the 
balance  of  the  spiritual  world  would  have  been  re-establish- 
ed. That  it  was  the  only  purpose  of  punishment  to  set 
the  world  right  again  in  this  almost  mathematically  exact 
manner  by  spiritual  mechanics,  the  writer  was  taught  in  his 
student  days  by  a  professor  of  philosophy  who  called  him- 
self proudly  the  last  Hegelian.  Modern  criminology,  how- 
ever, adopting  the  modern  psychological  way  of  thinking  of 
man  as  an  organism,  not  as  a  soul,  regards  a  crime  as  a  case 
of  poor  adjustment  of  one  organism  to  the  others  and  also — 
not  less — of  the  other  organisms  to  the  one,  and  punish- 
ment as  one  of  the  means  of  improving  this  biological  ad- 
justment. 

All  the  social  sciences  will  have  to  take  the  same  road. 
Economics  has  one  foot  already  on  it,  but  it  seems  to  have 
the  other  foot  still  on  the  old  road  forming  an  endless  circle 
which  leads  nowhere.  We  still  see  too  much  interest  shown 
among  economists  in  speculative  discussions  of  subjective 
terms,  such  as  "value,"  which  in  no  way  contribute  to  the 


404  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

real  problem  of  finding  how  human  organisms  produce,  ac- 
cumulate, and  distribute  things  which  help  to  strengthen 
the  functions  of  these  organisms. 
\J  Sociology,  that  is,  the  mass  of  knowledge  of  a  social  kind 
to  which  we  apply  the  term  "sociology"  in  the  restricted 
sense,  perhaps  has  had  unusually  good  luck.  Coming  into 
existence  rather  late,  let  us  say  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
it  seems  always  to  have  had  the  advantage  of  the  pressure 
resulting  from  the  immediate  social  needs  of  mankind. 
Sociologists,  that  is.  have  always  felt  so  strongly  the  need 
of  social  reform,  the  need  of  betterment  of  the  lives  of  the 
very  organisms  with  whom  they  rubbed  shoulders  in  the 
crowd  on  the  street,  that  they  did  not  find  much  time  for 
talk  about  souls.  Nevertheless  there  are  sociological  books 
whose  very  chapter  headings  make  one  shudder,  so  far  re- 
moved are  they  from  the  warmth  of  life, — such  headings  as 
"Intuitive  Perception,"  "Intuitive  Reason,"  or  "Female 
Intuition."     That  is  Hegel  revived. 

A  further  social  science  is  the  science  of  religion,  or,  as 
it  is  often  called,  the  psychology  of  religion.  Who  doubts 
that  religion  is  one  of  the  strongest  forces  in  society?  And 
yet,  for  thousands  of  years  the  intellectual  interest  of  men, 
of  students,  has  been  restricted  to  the  unsocial,  artificial 
problems  of  religion,  the  questions  as  to  the  interrelation 
of  souls, — for  example,  the  question  how  one  soul  may 
contribute  to  the  eternal  salvation  or  eternal  damnation  of 
other  souls,  briefly  speaking,  to  theology,  which  is  not  a 
social,  but  a  purely  individualistic  affair,  one  intellectual 
game  among  the  many  which  fill  the  history  of  philosophy. 
The  modern  psychological  way  of  thinking  has  brought 
us  back  to  the  solid  ground  of  appreciating  religion  as  a 
social  phenomenon,  exemplified  by  Christ  going  among  his 
fellow  men,  an  organism  among  organisms,  and  comfort- 
ing and  encouraging  those  whose  burdens  in  society  were 


RELIGION  AND  PSYCHOLOGY  405 

heaviest,  making  it  easier  for  them  to  carry  the  burden  when 
its  removal  under  the  existing  conditions  was  impossible. 

It  is  easy  enough,  then,  to  answer  the  question  what  use 
the  social  sciences  have  for  psychology.  They  simply  are 
psychology  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word ;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  psychology  is  social  science. 

We  psychologists  must  often  hear  the  (unjustified)  re- 
proach that  ovir  psychology  is  nothing  but  physiology  or 
neurology  or  some  similar  "unpsychological,"  materialistic 
science,  against  which  you  would  better  protect  the  un- 
suspecting, pure  soul  of  the  college  freshman.  But  we 
psychologists  have  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  our  in- 
terests from  those  of  other  biological  departments.  We 
study  the  organism  as  an  organism,  it  is  true,  but  only  in 
so  far  as  its  functions  have  distinctly  social  significance. 
We  do  not  study  the  stomach,  because  its  function  is  an  in- 
dividualistic affair  with  which  society  is  not  directly  con- 
cerned. It  is  the  physiologist's  business.  We  do  not  study 
the  breakdown  of  nerve  cells  under  the  influence  of  exces- 
sive athletic  training.  That  is  an  individualistic  affair,  the 
business  of  the  medical  man.  But  we  are  concerned  with 
the  possibilities  of  developing  habits  and  with  the  limita- 
tions, if  there  are  any,  which  Nature  may  have  placed  upon 
the  development  of  habits.  We  are  convinced  that  habits 
are  the  mysterious  entities  so  much  and  so  vaguely  talked 
about  under  the  name  of  social  forces. 

A  hundred  years  ago  Johannes  Mueller,  the  father  of 
modern  physiology,  made  the  famous  remark :  Nemo  psy- 
chologus  nisi  physiologus."  That  was  a  valuable  statement 
at  his  time  when  psychology  was  still  mixed  up  with  spec- 
ulative philosophy  and  very  little  psychology  in  the  modern 
sense  existed.  Today  a  still  more  valuable  statement  would 
be  this:  "Nemo  psychologus  nisi  sociologus." 


406  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

The  psychologist,  however  up-to-date,  is  not  a  material- 
ist. He  does  not  deny  the  existence  of  the  soul.  He  may 
deny,  however,  that  it  is  his  business  to  waste  his  time  in 
trying  to  make  the  soul  an  object  of  scientific  inquiry.  We 
do  not  deny  the  soul ;  but  we  do  not  devote  our  time  to  it. 
We  find  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to  do  studying 
the  body.  For  instance,  when  we  study  memory,  we  do 
not  study  the  soul.  We  find  out,  for  example,  how  many 
times  the  speech  organs  have  to  pronounce  a  series  of 
words  placed  before  the  eye  until  they  will  pronounce  the 
whole  series  correctly  with  only  the  first  word  appearing 
before  the  eye.  That  is  a  study  of  the  organic  functioning 
of  the  body. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  no  human  being  can  be  always  safe 
and  sane  in  his  ways  of  thinking.  Even  if  I  could  master 
all  the  scientific  achievements  of  the  day,  which  obviously 
one  individual  can  not,  these  scientific  achievements  them- 
selves are  only  a  small  part  of  that  complete  understanding 
of  the  world  which  a  divine  being  would  possess.  Owing 
to  the  individual  and  general  limitation  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge, moments  arise  in  everyone's  life,  less  frequently  in 
one's,  more  frequently  in  another's,  when  no  amount  of  ra- 
tional thought,  but  faith  in  the  destiny  of  this  world,  relig- 
ious faith  alone  can  give  him  comfort.  Religion  is  needed, 
then  and  therefore.     But  remember,  it  is  extra-scientific. 

Now  you  will  perhaps  ask:  If  psychology  is  not  the 
science  of  the  soul,  but  one  of  the  many  sciences  of  material 
bodies,  will  it  always  be  possible  to  define  it  so  that  I  can 
distinguish  it  from  the  other  sciences  ?  The  answer  is  simple. 
Don't  distinguish  it.  Don't  define  it.  You  don't  have  to 
define  it  any  more  than  you  have  to  define  physics.  That 
is  physics  in  which  those  are  interested  who  are  called 
physicists  by  consensus  of  opinion.  For  the  purposes  of 
mankind  that  is  not  only  a  sufficient,  but  a  better  definition 


DEFINITION  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  407 

than  any  more  detailed  one  you  might  substitute.  We  have 
hinted,  in  the  first  chapter  and  in  this  chapter,  at  a  defini- 
tion of  psychology  in  terms  describing  its  subject  matter. 
But  really  the  best  definition,  the  one  that  serves  human 
society  best,  is  this  :  Psychology  is  that  in  which  psychologists 
are  interested  as  men  of  science. 

This  definition  has  also  this  great  advantage  for  the  psy- 
chologist that  now  the  other  sciences  can  no  longer  unload 
their  unsolved  problems  on  psychology  by  shrugging  their 
shoulders,  so  to  speak,  and  saying :  Here  is  a  problem  whose 
solution  concerns  us, — concerns  us  more  than  anyone  else. 
But  it  seems  to  be  a  problem  of  the  soul,  therefore  we  must 
wait  until  the  psychologists  solve  it. 

You  see  how  hopeless  the  case  then  would  be.  If  it  is  a 
problem  of  the  soul,  then  it  is  no  scientific  problem  at  all 
and  the  psychologist  will  never  pay  any  attention  to  it.  But 
if  it  is  an  objective  problem,  a  real  problem,  then  it  is  a 
problem  of  that  science  which  is  directly  concerned  with  it. 

If  the  lawyer  has  a  problem,  and  if  no  one  else  cares  for 
it  enough  to  attempt  its  solution,  then  it  is  a  lawyer's  prob- 
lem, a  problem  of  jurisprudence ;  and  it  is  primarily  the 
lawyer's  business  to  solve  it.  Don't  be  lazy  and  call  it  a 
psychological  problem. 

If  the  engineer  has  a  problem,  say,  whether  the  man  in 
the  locomotive  cab  should  wear  overalls  or  an  apron,  don't 
be  lazy  and  call  it  a  psychological  problem.  If  no  psychol- 
ogist and  nobody  else  can  be  made  to  take  an  interest  in 
the  question  but  you,  then  it  is  a  problem  in  engineering. 

If  the  economist  has  a  problem,  say,  why  people  want  to 
buy  things  that  they  have  no  use  for,  don't  say:  "Excuse 
me,  this  is  psychology.  It  is  a  problem  of  the  soul.  It  is 
mysterious.  We  can't  solve  it.  We  are  waiting  for  the 
psychologists."    If  it  is  your  problem  because  you  seem  to 


408  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEE-ONE 

be  primarily  interested  in  it,  then  it  is  a  problem  of  eco- 
nomics.   Go  ahead  and  solve  it. 

One  must  not  think  that  this  gives  an  unfair  advantage  to 
the  psychologists,  relieving  them  from  practically  all  re- 
sponsibility for  the  welfare  of  the  world.  Not  so.  We 
psychologists  have  similar  troubles.  We  are  often  inclined 
to  think,  this  is  a  problem  in  physics,  this  is  a  problem  in 
chemistry,  this  is  a  problem  in  neurology,  and  so  forth,  and 
to  wait  until  the  physicists,  the  chemists,  the  neurologists 
have  solved  it.  But  it  won't  do.  Those  men  take  but  little 
interest  in  our  problems.  You  can't  expect  them  to  take 
more.  So  we  have  to  do  what  everyone  has  to  do,  to  solve 
our  own  problems  ourselves. 

You  do  not  wonder,  then,  altho  you  perhaps  wondered 
before,  why  the  modern  psychologist  needs  so  much  equip- 
ment of  apparatus,  machinery,  tools.  Maybe  you  thought 
that  a  psychological  laboratory  ought  to  look  like  a  saint's 
chapel  or  like  the  interior  of  the  Egyptian  temple  which  you 
saw  on  the  operatic  stage,  in  the  Magic  Flute.  Such  places 
seem  to  be  well  suited  to  an  investigation  of  souls.  But 
that  is  not  our  task. 


CHAPTER  XX 

The  Mysteries  of  the  Soul. 

Ask  a  college  freshman  on  his  registration  day  what  he 
thinks  his  psychology  teacher  ought  to  teach  him.  The 
answer  is  likely  to  be  "How  to  hypnotize  people."  Now, 
this  is  not  mentioned  in  order  to  convey  the  idea  that  a 
psychologist  is  not  concerned  with  hypnotism.  We  are. 
But  this  subject  is  so  trite,  and  the  task  of  hypnotizing  a 
person  is  ordinarily  so  devoid  of  the  satisfaction  which 
comes  from  performing  a  task  both  difficult  and  useful 
(neither  of  which  can  usually  be  said  of  hypnotizing)  that 
the  psychologist  feels  no  more  enthusiasm  about  it  than  a 
kitchen  chef  would  feel  when  given  the  task  of  boiling  the 
potatoes  for  a  banquet. 

But  with  the  layman  it  is  a  different  story.  It  is  thrilling. 
Why  is  there  this  great  interest  in  hypnotism  among  the 
lay  population?  Because  to  them  it  is  not  a  mere  material 
event,  as  easily  reproduced  by  anybody  as  any  simple  event, 
as  sawing  a  branch  from  a  tree,  for  example,  but  a  demon- 
stration of  the  powers  of  the  soul.  Like  everything  con- 
cerning the  soul  it  is  mysterious.  And  like  everything  mys- 
terious it  is  thrillingly  interesting. 

Hypnotism  is  a  relation  between  two  human  beings,  two 
human  bodies,  two  organisms.  It  is  therefore  a  relation 
essentially  the  same  as  that  of  teacher  and  pupil,  for  ex- 
ample; or  that  of  traffic  policeman  and  driver;  or  that  of  a 
politician  and  his  constituents ;  or  that  of  the  governor  of 
a  state  and  the  people  of  the  state ;  or  that  of  an  army 
officer  and  a  soldier;  or  that  of  a  priest  and  a  confessing 

(409) 


410  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

sinner ;  or  the  relation  between  two  sinners,  or  between  two 
private  soldiers,  or  that  between  one  citizen  and  another  one 
living  next  door.  When  we  here  enumerate  these  dry  ex- 
amples chosen  at  random  from  the  multitude  of  human  re- 
lations, they  may  at  the  first  moment  seem  to  be  unsuited 
to  our  discussion,  to  involve  nothing  of  the  kind  of  a  problem 
of  souls.  But  with  the  least  amount  of  reflection  you  will 
convince  yourself  that,  except  very  recently,  all  these  have 
always  been  treated,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  as  problems 
of  the  interrelation  of  souls.  And  as  problems  of  souls  they 
have  been  mysterious  problems,  open  to  attack,  not  by  the 
methods  of  science,  but  only  by  the  methods  of  magic. 

The  most  extreme  case  is  that  of  religion.  Let  us  there- 
fore courageously  subject  it  first  to  our  scrutiny.  Religion 
is  to  the  individual  who  has  it  (and  we  all  have  religion, 
altho  perhaps  under  different  and  curious  names  and  at 
different  times  and  periods  of  our  lives  different  quantities 
of  it) — religion  is  the  great  problem,  the  great  mystery  of 
oi:r  soul.  How  to  procure  satisfaction,  salvation  for  our 
soul  under  the  tribulations  of  life,  that  is  the  question. 
Does  mankind  draw  the  consequences  from  the  fact  that  we 
know  thru  our  senses  no  soul  whatsoever,  and  that  the  only 
soul  which  we  experience  in  our  immediate  consciousness 
is  the  own  soul?  If  we  drew  the  proper  consequences,  we 
would  be — that  is,  mankind  would  always  have  been — per- 
fectly tolerant  in  matters  of  religion.  The  reverse  is  true. 
Thruout  history  we  find  religion  being  spread  by  fire  and 
sword,  by  torture  and  death.  By  these  methods  people  be- 
lieved themselves  able  to  save,  not  only  their  own  souls,  but 
also  thousands  and  millions  of  other  souls.  Innumerable 
human  lives  were  sacrificed  in  order  that  their  souls  be 
saved. 

Now  assume,  for  comparison,  the  attitude  of  the  modern 
p.'^ychologist.     He  will  make  no  attempt  at  proving  to  you 


MYSTEEIOUS  PROBLEMS  411 

that  you  have  no  soul.  Your  soul  and  the  question  of  its 
existence  are  your  own  business.  Because  your  soul  is  your 
own  business,  can  never  be  any  other's  experience  or 
business,  and  must  therefore  be  forever  mysterious,  forever 
closed  to  the  inductive  methods  of  science,  closed  to  the 
infinitely  repeatable  sensory-motor  test  of  scientific  pro- 
cedure, therefore  the  psychologist  minds  his  own  business 
and  leaves  your  soul  alone.  Your  religion  is  to  him  a  set 
of  peculiar  reactions  of  your  body,  consisting  in  the  writing 
and  speaking  of  particular  words  and  the  performance  of 
particular  observances,  such  as  going  to  church. 

The  psychologist  is  much  interested  in  these  actions  of 
your  body.  He  tries  to  find  out  to  what  extent  they  are 
inherited,  to  what  extent  they  are  habits  acquired  during 
life,  what  forces,  physical  or  social,  contribute  to  the  for- 
mation of  these  habits,  what  help  your  body  can  derive 
from  these  inherited  and  acquired  functions  in  its  struggle 
for  existence.    And  then  he  will  give  you  his  advice. 

You  need  not  accept  his  advice.  He  will  hardly  urge  you 
to  accept  it.  for  he  knows  how  little  he  knows  this  complex 
machinery  called  the  human  body  and  its  functions.  As  to 
forcing  you  by  torture  or  death  to  accept  his  advice,  the 
idea  is  ridiculous  to  him  who  knows  how  little  he  knows. 
The  psychologist,  altho  he  may  have  written  a  big  volume 
on  the  psychology-  of  religion,  can  not  help  being  tolerant. 
He  has  as  much  doubt  as  he  has  knowledge. 

It  is  the  man  who  is  interested  in  souls  who  is  intolerant. 
Not  having,  since  no  one  can  have  it  (as  we  stated), 
scientific  knowledge  of  other  people's  souls,  he  has  no 
scientific  doubts  about  their  souls  either,  but  regards  them 
dogmatically  as  recasts  of  his  own  soul  and  acts  according- 
ly. Is  not  that  exactly  what  we  call  intolerance,  when  we 
expect  everything  to  be  like  our  own?  He  whose  interest  is 
centered  in  souls  thinks,  when  he  has  forced  others  to  speak 


412  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

his  prayer,  pronounce  his  creed,  kneel  before  his  altar,  that 
he  has  saved  their  souls,  and  fails  to  admit  that  he  has 
merely  forced  their  bodies, — without  in  the  least  trying  to 
investigate  the  purpose,  the  end  of  his  intolerant  acts  so 
far  as  the  welfare  of  these  bodies  is  concerned. 

Religion  is  one  of  the  poles  of  the  axis  around  which 
our  intolerance  swings  in  its  mysterious  whirl.  Government 
is  the  other.  Nsiive  thinkers  have  sometimes  concluded 
that  the  easiest  way  of  freeing  the  world  from  intolerance 
would  be  the  abolition  of  both  religion  and  government. 
Those  who  boast  of  being  atheists,  usually  also  boast  of 
being  anarchists.  A  certain  phase  in  the  French  revolution 
comes  to  our  mind  as  a  typical  example.  If  you  still  are  in 
this  naive  stage  of  thought  which  often  accompanies  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth  trying  to  reform  the  world  quickly, 
we  shall  not  take  you  seriously  because  we  are  convinced 
that  you  will  sooner  or  later  pass  over  that  stage.  What  we 
must  point  out  is  that  political  terrorism,  too,  has  its  main 
and  inexhaustible  source  in  the  human  tendency  to  think 
of  other  human  beings,  not  as  bodies  open  to  scientific  in- 
vestigation, but  as  souls,  as  mysterious  beings,  to  be  govern- 
ed either  by  magic  or,  if  magic  fails  as  it  naturally  must, 
by  torture  and  death. 

In  all  the  history  of  mankind  it  has  always  been  regarded 
as  the  crime  of  all  crimes  to  be  against  the  de  facto  govern- 
ment, to  be  a  rebel,  to  try  to  change  the  government  by  sub- 
stituting for  those  persons  who  have  the  power,  some  other 
persons.  If  those  who  govern  would  be  regarded  and  re- 
gard themselves  merely  as  the  servants  of  the  people,  why 
should  it  be  a  crime  to  change  servants?  We  do  it  here  in 
the  United  States  every  few  years.  But  what  is  the  divine 
right  of  kings  if  it  is  not  the  assertion  of  a  mysterious  soul 
given  to  the  king  by  God,  quite  different  from  the  souls 


MYSTERIOUS  PROBLEMS  413 

of  subjects,  but  whose  difference  is  quite  beyond  the  pos- 
sibility of  scientific  investigation. 

Where  the  divine  right  is  still  quite  unchallenged  by  the 
critical  spirit  of  science,  as  among  half  civilized  people,  the 
king  is  expected  to  perform  magic  feats  (in  France  until 
the  eighteenth  century).  Why  not, — if  his  soul  is  of  a 
superior  kind?  One  of  the  Prussian  kings,  even  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  made  himself  famous  by  speaking  of  "the 
limitations  of  judgment  characteristic  of  mere  subjects." 
Among  more  highly  civilized  people,  where  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  the  body  of  the  king  (or  say  President,  it 
makes  no  difference)  is  a  very  common  human  body  inter- 
feres with  regarding  the  soul  as  superior,  an  impersonal 
soul  is  often  substituted  and  worshipped.  It  is  the  "state" 
or  the  "nation"  or  the  "country"  or  the  "honor  of  the  flag," 
as  we  say,  that  plays  the  same  role.  Not  the  state  in  the 
sense  of  the  totality  of  the  human  beings  living  within  a 
certain  territory  in  the  year — choose  your  own.  That 
would  be  a  truly  scientific  conception  in  the  investigation 
of  which  the  psychologist  would  be  glad  to  share.  But  the 
state  in  the  sense  of  a  soul-like  reality,  unknowable  thru  our 
senses,  but  which  we  must  worship  with  out  bodies  as  the 
subjects  of  a  king  worship  their  king. 

In  the  story  of  William  Tell  it  is  said  that  the  Governor 
whom  the  Emperor  had  sent  to  Switzerland  invented  a  good 
method  of  making  the  Swiss  submissive.  He  had  a  pole 
erected  on  the  market  place  of  one  of  the  towns  and  his  hat 
placed  on  top  of  the  pole.  When  the  Swiss  people  walked 
by,  they  had  to  take  off  their  hats  and  bow.  What  were 
they  to  worship?  The  body  of  that  piece  of  felt  crowning 
the  pole?  Of  course  not,  but  its  soul,  the  imperial  idea.  You 
see  that  even  a  piece  of  felt  may  have  a  soul.  The  story  ap- 
pears fanciful  to  us.     It  probably  is  fancy,  a  mere  legend. 


414  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

Make  sure,  however,  that  we  do  not  do  the  same  today, 
only  under  another  name. 

If  we  get  into  patriotic  hysterics,  the  professional  poli- 
tician can  subject  us  the  more  easily.  In  poetry  one  can  not 
object  to  talk  of  the  soul  of  a  nation,  or  of  such  synonyms 
as  the  "honor"  of  a  nation,  which  to  some  is  as  convenient 
a  substitute  for  soul  as  it  used  to  be  to  the  duellists  of  former 
centuries  who  had  to  fight  whenever  their  "honor"  was  hurt. 
Religion  and  poetry  (or  art  in  general)  are  the  two  forms 
of  human  activity  which  have  a  right  to  be  unscientific — or 
rather  extrascientific — so  long  as  they  are  not  antagonistic 
to  scientific,  objective  social  progress.  But  let  this  talk  of 
the  soul,  the  honor,  the  Kultur,  the  destiny  of  a  nation  and 
its  needs  get  beyond  the  playful  use  in  poetry,  let  it  get  into 
international  diplomacy,  let  it  begin  to  determine  your  ac- 
tions towards  other  beings,  and  your  actions  will  be  as 
atrocious  as  those  for  which  the  world  war  has  given  us 
plentiful  examples. 

If  nations  could  be  made  to  see  that  all  nations  are  con- 
gregations of  organisms  of  the  same  species,  and  that  what 
each  calls  its  soul,  its  honor,  its  civilization,  its  tradition 
(the  particular  one  of  these  terms  used  makes  no  difference) 
is  only  a  set  of  organic  habits  on  the  whole  neither  better 
nor  worse  than  the  habits  of  another  group,  peace  would 
reign  on  earth  as  it  has  come  to  reign  in  our  smaller  com- 
munities. 

Let  us  recapitulate  what  we  have  said  thus  far.  In  re- 
ligion and  in  politics  the  worst  intolerance,  the  most  in- 
human atrocity  is  found  correlated  with  the  most  one-sided 
preference  of  spiritual,  subjective,  idealistic  terminology. 
Can  you  blame  the  psychologist  when  he,  who  regards  the 
study  of  human  life  as  his  particular  sphere  of  interest, 
confesses  to  you  that  he  prefers  to  think  of  a  human  being 


MYSTERIOUS  PROBLEMS  415 

as  a  bodily  organism  rather  than  as  a  soul,  of  a  nation  as  a 
society  of  such  organisms  rather  than  as  a  collective  soul? 

From  our  earliest  youth,  almost  from  infancy,  we  become 
saturated  with  habits  of  denoting  human  beings  as  souls, 
and  thus  we  are  led  into  the  alleys  of  the  maze  of  mystery 
from  which  few  find  their  way  out  into  the  light  of  modern, 
rational,  scientific  thought,  and  from  which  many,  very 
many,  it  is  to  be  feared,  never  even  see  a  dim  and  distant 
reflection  of  such  light. 

When  you  ask  a  person  who  manifests  any  considerable 
interest  in  psychology  what  it  is  that  he  is  specially  inter- 
ested in,  he  usually  replies  that  it  is  hypnotism,  or  thought 
transference,  or  mind  reading,  or  fortune  telling,  or  char- 
acter reading.  If  this  were  not  the  twentieth  century,  but 
the  eighteenth,  we  could  have  added  sorcery,  magic,  en- 
chantment. These  and  similar  mixtures  of  fact  and  fable 
are  the  mysteries  of  the  soul. 

To  hypnotize  a  person,  it  is  necessary,  according  to  the 
popular  notion,  to  obtain  first  a  peculiar  property  of  the 
soul,  a  kind  of  spiritual  magnetism  that  can  at  a  distance 
act  on  another  soul,  can  reproduce  itself  in  another  soul  as 
magnetism  can  reproduce  itself  in  another  piece  of  iron,  and 
which  one  may  obtain  therefore  from  another  person  who 
already  has  it,  if  that  person  is  willing  to  give.  No  doubt 
that  not  a  few  college  students  are  either  entirely  or  at  least 
partially  driven  by  such  notions  and  the  motives  connected 
therewith  when  they  enroll  in  a  course  in  psychology.  Some 
people  who  offer  themselves  to  play  the  ridiculous  role  of 
being  hypnotized,  do  so  from  this  kind  of  curiosity,  because 
they  wonder  how  it  feels  when  that  magnetism  goes  thru 
one.  They  are  not  to  be  blamed  at  all.  If  we  grow  up 
under  conditions  implanting  such  notions  in  us,  it  is  entirely 
proper  and  an  indication  of  a  perfectly  normal  and  desirable 
curiosity  and  ambition,  to  learn  about  and,  if  possible,  ob- 


416  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEK-ONE 

tain  such  a  wonderful  power.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
easy  to  read  the  disappointment  in  their  faces  when  they 
learn  that  everybody  can  hypnotize  just  as  everybody  can 
kindle  a  fire,  can  give  an  Indian  whisky  to  drink,  or  can 
rock  a  baby  to  sleep.    Why  call  it  mysterious? 

The  following  happened  at  a  time  when  mysterious 
phenomena  were  most  commonly  referred  to  under  the 
term  "animal  magnetism",  when — in  a  certain  European 
country — telegraph  wires  were  already  found  along  many 
of  the  important  highways,  but  when  railway  lines  were 
still  very  rare.  The  manager  of  an  "animal  magnetism 
show"  traveled  with  his  "medium"  in  a  coach  from  one 
city  to  another.  Unfortunately,  when  they  arrived,  they 
could  not  give  the  performance  on  the  promised  date  because 
the  medium  had  become  sick.  The  manager  explained 
the  sickness  very  readily.  No  wonder  she  got  sick :  She, 
that  is,  this  "lump  of  animal  magnetism,"  had  been  com- 
pelled to  "move  for  miles  and  miles  parallel  and  in  close 
proximity  to  an  electric  wire,"  that  is,  the  telegraph  wire. 
Many  of  our  contemporaries  who  laugh  at  the  foolishness 
of  this  explanation  would  probably  be  quite  willing  to  ac- 
cept equally  foolish  explanations  of  facts  if  they  are  only 
clad  in  terms  which  have  the  character  of  mysteriousness 
in  the  way  in  which  the  populace  of  today  is  accustomed  to 
think. 

Is  there  anything  mysterious  in  a  mother's  rocking  or 
singing  a  baby  to  sleep?  It  is  just  as  difficult  to  rock  a  baby 
to  sleep  as  to  hypnotize  a  person.  Nevertheless,  no  mother 
has  ever  claimed,  and  no  other  person  has  ever  admitted, 
that  she  had  a  mysterious  power  over  the  baby's  soul.  The 
baby  is  placed  in  a  comfortable  position,  the  light  is  dimmed 
and  all  other  avoidable  stimuli  are  kept  away.  The  subject 
to  be  hypnotized  is  treated  in  the  same  manner.  The  baby 
is  rocked.     Bodies  to  be  hypnotized,  however,  are  usually 


MYSTERIOUS  PROBLEMS  417 

too  large  and  heavy  to  be  rocked  easily,  since  the  hypnotizer 
is  not  a  giant.  Therefore  the  latter  substitutes  for  the  rock- 
ing talking.  Speak  to  a  person  under  such  conditions  as 
persuasively  as  you  can  about  nothing  but  sleep  and  dreams, 
and  he  finally  assumes  the  sleeping  posture  as  far  as  it  is 
possible  in  the  given  situation  and  becomes  preoccupied 
with  maintaining  this  posture. 

If  you  have  any  experience  in  it,  you  know  that,  when 
you  rock  a  baby  to  sleep,  the  most  risky  part  of  the  per- 
formance is  the  moment  when  you  stop  rocking.  The  ces- 
sation of  rocking  requires  a  new  adjustment  of  the  baby's 
body  and  is  therefore  of  the  nature  of  a  new  stimulus.  To 
this  stimulus,  the  cessation  of  rocking,  the  baby  is  likely  to 
respond  by  throwing  about  its  arms  and  legs,  by  crying,  and 
by  similar  activities  which  we  familiarly  call  waking  up. 

What  is  to  be  emphasized,  however,  is  not  this  waking  up 
as  such.  If  we  must  regard  the  cessation  of  rocking  as  a 
stimulus  to  which  the  baby's  body  responds  by  a  new  ad- 
justment, it  is  clear  that  before  the  new  and  changed  ad- 
justment there  was  another  adjustment.  That  is,  the  baby's 
body,  asleep  as  we  say,  is  nevertheless  keeping  adjusted,  is 
in  this  way  positively  responding  to  the  rocking,  altho 
asleep.  That  is  one  of  the  false  notions  most  people  have, 
that  sleep  is  the  opposite  of  every  class  of  activity.  The 
sleeping  body  is  not  absolutely  inactive.  It  is  one-sidedly 
active.     It  is  pre-occupied. 

Now  substitute  for  the  baby  the  hypnotized  subject. 
Talking  takes  the  place  of  rocking.  It  is  plain,  then,  that 
the  hypnotized  body,  too,  is  still  positively  adjusting  him- 
self to,  reacting  to,  the  hypnotizer's  talking, — altho  already 
asleep.  Now  the  hypnotizer  begins  to  change  the  content 
of  his  talk.  Instead  of  talking  about  sleep  and  dreams,  he 
begins  to  talk  about  raising  an  arm.  opening  the  mouth,  and 
similar  reactions  of  the  nature  of  visible  motion.     But  re- 


4:18  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

member,  the  hypnotizer  is  one  of  those  stimuH  with  whom 
the  subject  to  be  hypnotized  is  already  preoccupied.  It  is 
not  mysterious,  then,  that  these  motions  are  executed. 

If  I  stand  before  an  audience,  raise  my  finger,  look  at  it 
myself  and  say  in  a  loud  voice  "Look  at  this  finger,"  every 
one  looks  at  it.  There  is  no  mystery  in  that.  It  is  no  more 
mysterious  when  a  hypnotized  person  obeys  an  imperative 
demand  and  bites  into  a  raw  potato,  smacks  his  lips,  tells 
you  that  it  is  a  delicious  apple.  If  a  clerk  in  the  grocery 
store  or  a  professional  entertainer  in  the  circus  acts  in  that 
way,  you  call  him  silly,  a  fool,  or  a  clown.  Why, — be  con- 
sistent and  call  the  hypnotic  performance  by  the  correspond- 
ing name.     It  fully  deserves  it. 

The  only  difference  is  this,  that  the  clown  is  the  actor 
who  supplies  the  ridiculous  element  of  the  case,  whereas 
in  the  hypnotic  performance  you,  the  spectator,  little  as  you 
may  suspect  it,  supply  the  ridiculous  element.  The  pre- 
occupied person  can  not  be  expected  to  act  rationally  while 
he  is  preoccupied,  but  you,  the  spectator,  might  have  better 
sense  than  to  apply  the  notion  of  a  soul  acting  thru  the 
medium  of  a  spiritual  magnetism,  when  all  that  happened 
before  your  eyes  was  the  social  relation,  the  most  familiar 
fact  in  the  world,  between  two  bodily  organisms.  Think  of 
two  organisms,  and  the  whole  performance  loses  its  mys- 
tery, becomes  trivial.  Think  of  two  souls,  and  it  is  myste- 
rious. But  what  is  truly  mysterious  is  the  fact  that  you,  a 
usually  rational  spectator,  should  apply  this  silly  notion  of  a 
magnetism  of  souls. 

The  popular  craving  for  hypnotism  and  whatever  is 
connected  with  it  becomes  comprehensible  when  we  recall 
that  it  is  a  craving  for  power, — for  power  over  other  souls, 
power  to  compel  them  to  do  what  we  want  them  to  do. 
And  people  long  for  still  another  power  over  souls  which 
consists  in  knowing  them,  in  knowing  their  thoughts  and 


MYSTERIOUS  PROBLEMS  419 

feelings,  in  knowing  their  character,  in  order  to  adjust 
themselves  to  such  knowledge.  If  we  could  all  realize  that 
knowing  another  person  can  mean  only  knowing  his  organic 
habits,  we  would  go  about  obtaining  it  in  the  proper  way, 
by  gradually  accumulating  experience,  tho  this  process 
must  be  slow.  But  we  think  falsely  that  knowing  another 
person  means  knowing  his  soul  and  crave  for  a  short  cut 
by  mysterious  means.  In  practice,  the  requirement  of  know- 
ing another  soul  has  played  its  greatest  or  rather  its  most 
disastrous  role  in  criminal  procedure. 

Criminal  procedure  until  most  recent  times  has  always 
had  for  its  aim  the  restoration  of  the  spiritual  balance  of 
the  world  by  meting  out  punishment  in  proportion  to  the 
quantity  of  evil  thought,  of  evil  character,  contained  in  the 
evil-doer's  soul.  That  legal  punishment  is  one  of  the  means 
of  social  adaptation,  of  mutually  adapting  the  habits  of  the 
individual  human  organism  and  of  the  society  of  such  or- 
ganisms, is  a  very  recent  insight  which  has  not  become  quite 
universal  yet.  In  the  traditional  procedure  the  only  im- 
portant problem  for  the  judge  was  to  know  the  accused  per- 
son's soul,  his  "thoughts."  When  the  prisoner's  thoughts 
were  known,  it  was  an  easy  matter  to  adjust  the  punishment 
to  them.  Any  person  whose  intelligence  was  equal  to  the 
multiplication  table  could  do  that. 

But  how  to  know  the  other  person's  thoughts, — that  was 
^  a  problem !  Have  you  ever  tried  to  read  another  person's 
mind?  Suppose  you  were  the  judge  and  you  had  to  read 
the  other  person's  mind.  Of  course,  you  remember  the 
classic  examples  of  King  Solomon.  Go  and  do  likewise. 
But  you  would  soon  begin  to  doubt,  under  the  stress  of 
actuality,  whether  Solomon's  wisdom  was  not  fable  rather 
than  fact.  Mind  reading  is  easy  only  when  its  truth  or  un- 
truth is  of  no  serious  consequence,  when  it  is  a  mere  sport. 
It  becomes  difficult  in  proportion  to  its  seriousness  and  its 


420  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

real  value.  You  can  easily  understand,  then,  why  these 
judges  of  former  centuries,  despairing  of  their  mysterious 
power  of  mind  reading  which  they  were  supposed  to  pos- 
sess, should  have  felt  inclined  to  resort  to  a  more  feas- 
ible, altho  cruel,  method, — judicial  torture.  To  listen  is 
often  easier  than  to  read.     Why  not  here? 

Instead  of  reading,  those  judges  decided  to  listen  to,  the 
prisoner's  mind.  If  the  prisoner's  mind  would  not  move 
his  tongue,  there  were  means  of  loosening  the  tongue — ap- 
plication to  the  prisoner's  body  of  the  thumb  screw  or  the 
boot  or  the  rack  or  the  wheel.  A  person  of  the  twentieth 
century,  who  is  accustomed  to  scientific  ways  of  thinking, 
and  who  regards  the  prisoner  as  an  organism  whose  habits 
have  to  be  studied,  investigated  by  all  possible  means, 
among  which  listening  to  the  prisoner's  speech  function  is 
only  one  and  not  the  most  important  means,  wonders  why 
former  centuries  should  have  placed  such  enormous  weight 
in  legal  practice  upon  the  prisoner's  confession  or  lack  of 
confession.  But  it  becomes  plausible  enough  when  you 
consider  that  the  judge  in  former  times  was  not  a  sociolo- 
gist, but  a  mind  reader  who  by  mind  reading  and  a  little 
knowledge  of  the  law  had  to  keep  an  imaginary,  ideal, 
spiritual  world  from  losing  its  balance.  Fiat  justitia,  pereat 
mundus.  Let  justice  be  done,  even  tho  the  real  world, 
that  is,  mankind,  should  perish. 

Recall  the  horrors  of  the  torture,  the  horrors  of  the  pro- 
cedure especially  of  such  courts  as  the  Spanish  inquisition 
or  the  witch-craft  courts  of  the  17th  century  in  Europe  and 
in  New  England, — the  horrors  of  any  and  all  criminal  pro- 
cedure down  to  the  nineteenth,  maybe  even  to  the  twentieth 
century. 

These  atrocities  were  due  to  the  fact  that  the  judge  was 
serving  as  a  mind  reader,  and  that  the  accused  was  regarded 
primarily  as  a  soul.     Not  even  the   most   inhuman,  most 


MYSTERIOUS  PROBLEMS  421 

bestial  butcher  (a  butcher,  of  course,  is  not  inhuman  because 
of  being  a  butcher)  would  treat  a  pig  in  that  way.  Why 
not  ? — Because  the  pig  would  be  merely  an  animal,  not 
a  soul ;  and  therefore  not  only  the  energy,  but  the  dignity 
of  the  torture  would  be  wasted  on  it.  There  are  few  cases 
reported  in  the  history  of  mankind  where  animals,  that  is, 
"soulless"  beings,  have  been  executed ;  they  seem  to  have 
entirely  escaped  judicial  torture.  Even  that  rooster,  some- 
where in  Switzerland,  that  was  burnt  because  eye  witnesses 
seemed  to  prove  that  he  had  committed,  about  the  year 
1700,  the  devilish  act  of  laying  an  egg,  escaped  previous  tor- 
ture before  being  burnt  at  the  stake. 

Nowadays  we  think  we  are  more  enlightened.  We  have 
abolished  the  rack.  But  how  do  we  kill  a  prisoner  con- 
demned to  death  ?  We  tell  him  that  in  a  few  weeks  he  must 
die,  but  we  leave  him  in  suspense  as  to  whether  tomorrow 
or  next  week.  Then  suddenly  we  give  final  notice,  lead  him 
in  a  formal  procession  to  the  electric  chair  and  have  a  little 
chat  with  him  as  a  crowning  ceremony  to  our  procedure.  It 
does  not  occur  to  us  that,  if  the  welfare  of  society  demands 
that  a  certain  human  organism  be  put  to  death,  the  only 
humane  method  would  be  putting  him  to  death  without  tell- 
ing him  anything  about  it,  or  intimating  as  little  as  possible 
about  it.  and  doing  it  in  his  sleep  when  he  is  not  suspecting 
what  will  happen  the  next  moment.  Humane  methods, 
however,  we  leave  to  the  butcher.  The  executioner  mvtst  be 
atrocious  out  of  respect  for  the  prisoner's  soul. 

The  modern  psychologist  is  not  the  man  to  whom  you 
should  appeal  if  you  want  information  about  your  soul. 
The  psychologist  is  not  interested  in  your  soul  but  in  cer- 
tain functions  of  your  organism,  in  those  which  are  directly 
of  social  significance,  whereas  he  leaves  to  the  physiologist, 
and  the  workers  in  branches  of  science  related  to  physiology, 
the  study  of  those  functions  of  your  organism  which,  like 


422  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

digestion,  or  tissue  growth,  or  the  color  of  your  hair,  -ire 
not  directly  of  social,  but  almost  exclusively  of  individual 
significance.  This  book  could  have  attempted  to  make  clear 
the  gradual  change  of  his  interests  and  its  result,  the  present 
direction  of  the  psychologist's  interest.  For  example,  )t 
could  have  pointed  out  how  men  who  started  with  a  con- 
siderable enthusiasm  for  studying  the  soul  became  disgusted 
with  this  study,  because  they  discovered  that  it  led  no- 
where, just  as  this  same  study  of  the  soul,  continued  for 
thousands  of  years  in  the  history  of  mankind,  practically 
led  nowhere. 

However,  it  is  generally  more  difficult  to  prove  the  nega- 
tive, the  absence  of  something,  than  to  prove  the  existence 
of  something.  So  we  chose  the  method  which  is  easier  and 
more  quickly  convincing,  and  tried  to  show  you  that  our 
interest  in  other  human  beings  as  souls  positively  is  highly 
dangerous  for  human  society,  that  the  most  cruel  acts  of 
man  against  man  are  those  committed  in  the  name  of  man's 
mysterious  soul,  that  a  rational,  a  humane  treatment  of  its 
individual  members  is  to  be  expected  much  more  by  a  so- 
ciety which  regards  itself  as  a  group  of  organisms  than  by 
one  which  regards  itself  as  a  mysterious  collective  soul. 
You  cannot,  then,  blame  the  psychologist  if  he  refuses  to 
be  considered  an  expert  in  matters  spiritual,  if  he  proclaims 
that  his  work  is  a  study  of  the  human  organism  in  certain 
functional  aspects,  as  previously  delimited. 


QUESTIONS  AND  PROBLEMS 

Chapter  1. 

1.  What  role  does  the  Self  play  in  modern  psychology? 

2.  Is  the  psychology  of  the  Other-One  a  denial  of  his  conscious- 
ness? 

3.  How  do  engines,  plants,  animals,   and  the  Other-One  differ? 

4.  What  are   the  delimitations  of   psychology   toward   the  other 
sciences? 

5.  What  is  the  chief  cause  of  animal  locomotion? 

6.  What  is  the  direct  (not  indirect  and  later)  effect  of  a  stimulus 
on  living  bodies? 

7.  What  kinds  of  stimulation  and  what  kinds  of  response  are 
there? 

8.  What  kinds  of  differentiated  tissues  must  be  distinguished? 

9.  What  is  the  shape  of  neurons,  and  why? 

10.  What  is  the  relative  importance  of  gray  and  white  matter? 

11.  What  is  the  function  of  a  ganglion  cell? 

12.  What  need  is  there  of  a  second  form  of  animal  behavior? 

Chapter  2. 

13.  What  kind  of  snail  are  we  considering? 

14  Write  a  snail  story  in  which  you  use  the  following  terms  as 
often  as  you  wish,  but  in  proper  sequence:  (l)  body  weight 
axis,  (2)  stimulus,  (3)  expansion,  (4)  conduction,  (5)  con- 
traction, (6)  excitation,  (7)  normal  body  shape,  (8)  deforma- 
tion, (9)  direction  of  body,  (10)  normal  tissue  density,  (11) 
normal  chemical   constitution,    (12)    fever. 

15.  Why  is  the  kind  of  nervous  system  which  suggests  itself 
most  readily  quite  impossible? 

16.  Why  must  a  moth,  and  all  higher  animals,  have  nervous  tis- 
sue? 

17.  In  what  respect  may  the  answers  to  questions  15  and  16  ap- 
pear contradictory? 

18.  A  nervous  excitation  causes,  not  only  continuous  muscular 
contraction,   but   what   contraction   also? 

(423) 


424  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-OXE 

19.  What  is  meant  by  sensory  and  motor  points  of  the  body? 
Are  they  geometrical  points  in  the  bod^-? 

20.  Why  do  we  call  certain  actions  reflex  actions? 

21.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  term  "nerve  center"? 

22.  What  should  we  mean  by  central  neurons,  central  sensory 
points,  central  motor  points,  peripheral  points? 

Chapter  3. 

23.  What  is  a  local  reaction? 

24.  What   is   a   concerted   action? 

25.  What  distinction  between  causes  must  be  made  in  concerted 
action? 

26.  Give  examples  showing  the  relativity  of  the  distinction  he- 
tv.een  local  and  concerted  action. 

27.  Does  reference  to  localness  of  an  action  imply  inactivity  of 
the  rest  of  the  body?     What  does  it  imply? 

28.  Do  we  mean  by  concertedness  merely  simultaneity? 

29.  What  did  the  student  who  wrote  "Odgen"  write  instead  of 
"lapse"? 

30.  In  the  divisions  of  the  bell  of  the  jelly-fish,  why  is  there 
little  probability  of  much  difference  in  frequency? 

31.  As  in  the  preceding  question,  why  is  there  some  probability 
of   some  difference   in   frequency? 

32.  What  is  the  disadvantage  of  a  difference  in  frequency? 

33.  What  insures  simultaneity  of  contraction? 

34.  If  the  frequencies  of  the  divisions,  cut  from  each  other,  are 
16,  12,  13,  14,  15,  13,  15,  14  per  minute,  why  is  the  frequency 
of  the  united  whole  not  the  average,  14?     What  is  it? 

35.  What,  in  the  jelly-fish,  serves  as  "conductor  of  the  orchestra"? 

36.  Give  an  example  of  serial   action. 

37.  Give  an  example  of   circular  action. 

38.  How  would  you  causally   explain  circular  action? 

39.  Why  can  the  explanation  of  circular  action  not  be  universally 
accepted  as  a  causal  explanation  of  serial  action? 

Chapter  4. 

40.  Is  unification  of  the  animal  the  one  chief  purpose  of  the 
existence  of  a  nervous  system? 

41.  What  is  the  most  general  demand  made  on  the  architecture 
of  the  nervous  system  by  concertedness  of  action? 


QUESTIONS  AND   PEOBLEMS  425 

42.  In  what  respect  can  good  conductivity  from  any  part  of  an 
animal  to  every  other  be  undesirable? 

43.  What  are  the  two  methods  used  by  Nature  in  averting  the 
predicament  of  "too   universal   conductivity"? 

44.  Which  alone  of  the  two  methods  referred  to  in  the  preceding 
question  contains  a  constructive  element  valuable  to  the 
architect? 

45.  Why  is  the  mere  reflex  path  formerly  mentioned  not  suf- 
ficient to  enable  a  moth  to  alight  on  a  twig  or  leaf? 

46.  What  is  the  most  useful  diagram  enabling  us  to  represent 
short  nervous  connections  between  corresponding  peripheral 
points  and  longer  connections  between  non-corresponding 
points? 

47.  What  is  the  unit  by  which  we  measure  (count)  the  resist- 
ances of  various  paths  in  the  diagram  of  nervous  architec- 
ture? 

48.  How  are  resistance  and  conductivity  related? 

49.  What  is  meant  by  "levels"  in  the  nervous  system? 

50.  Why  are  we  (wrongly)  inclined  to  represent  a  nerve  center 
by  a  "point"  from  which   neurons  radiate? 

51.  Can  excitations  move  thru  any  nervous  path  in  either  direc- 
tion? 

52.  What  facts  of  human  behavior  prove  that  excitations  do  not 
within  the   nervous   sj'stem  proceed  toward  sense  organs? 

53.  What  relation  has  the  "synapse"  to  the  last  two  questions? 

54.  How  can  the  length  of  a  conductor  be  responsible  for  a  great 
delay  of  reaction,  altho  its  length  is  virtually  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  velocity  of  the  excitation? 

55.  What  is  the  relation  between  the  explanation  of  serial  ac- 
tivity and  the  question  of  the  number  of  nervous  levels? 

56.  What  is  the  advantage,  in  a  diagram  illustrating  the  last 
question,  of  representing  "higher"  nerve  centers  by  arches 
with  multiple  legs  rather  than  by  radiating  lines? 

57.  What  are  the  three  parts  of  the  problem  solved  by  choosing 
for  the  nervous  system  a  design  of  "arches  over  arches"? 

58.  Compute  the  distribution  of  the  flux  in  a  nervous  system  dif- 
fering from  that  for  which  the  computation  is  made  in  the 
text  only  by  the  substitution  for  each  of  the  three  motor 
neurons    (Mi     M  ,   Mi     M.,   Mi     M  )    of  a  pair  of   shunted 


426  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

neurons. — Answers  for  the  peripheral  neurons:  in-flux  1564; 
out-flux  49  and  49,  595  and  595,  138  and  138.  But  give  the  an- 
swers also  for  the  central  neurons  as  in  the  text. 

Chapter  5. 

59.  Give  examples  showing  that  the  Other-One's  absent-mind- 
edness is  related  to  his  just  preceding  occupation. 

60.  What  is  the  synapse  theory  of  preoccupation? 

61.  How  may  warming  up  be  related  to  absent-mindedness? 
G2.    What  relation  do  lower  and  higher  centers  seem  to  have  to 

absent-mindedness? 

63.  What  is  the  positive  aspect  of  a  failure  to  act? 

64.  Give  examples  of  the  positive  and  the  negative  aspect  of  pre- 
occupation. 

65.  What  facts  of  behavior  may  be  called  competition  of  stimuli? 

66.  What  advantage  does  Nature  obtain  thru  competition  of 
stimuli  over  what  would  result  from  the  law  of  the  resultant? 

67.  What  physiological  experiment  proves  the  deflection  of  a 
weaker  nervous  current  bj'  a  stronger  one? 

68.  In  what  respects  can  a  neuron  be  compared  with  a  storage 
battery? 

69.  How  does  deflection  differ  from  what  the  physiologists  call 
inhibition? 

70.  What  two  functional  peculiarities  does  the  usage  of  language 
combine  under  the  term  "instinctive"  activitj'? 

71.  Why  must  the  "deflection  center"  in  an  instinctive  activity 
be  a  "higher"  center  than  the  "overflow  center,"  which  is 
responsible  for   the   concertedness? 

72.  Why  is  a  room  painted  uniformly,  lacking  all  decorative 
features,  and  placed  in  an  absolutely  silent  locality  by  no 
means  the  ideal   school  room? 

73.  What  are  the  three  actual  meanings  of  the  social  term  "in- 
attention"? 

74.  What  is  the  cure  for  inattention? 

Chapter  6. 

75.  What  reflexes   are  joined,   and   how   are   they   joined,    in   the 

candy-eating  habit? 

76.  In  what  three  ways  do  motor  functions  become  related  (log- 
ically) in  the  formation  of  habits? 


QUESTIONS  AND   PBOBLEMS  427 

77.  Give  an  example  not  found  in  the  text  for  each  class  referred 
to   in   the   previous    question. 

78.  What  two  terms  are  suggested  in  the  text  for  the  classes 
vi'here  there  is  not  simply  substitution? 

79.  Does  the  antagonism  of  muscles  play  any  role  in  habit  forma- 
tion? 

80.  What  two  manners  of  reducing  the  resistance  of  a  complete 
nervous  path  must  be  strictly  distinguished?  Which  of  these 
conductivity  changes  establishes  itself  most  quickly  and 
which    lasts    longest? 

81.  What  three  conditions  are  given  in  the  text  as  essential  for 
forming  a  habit  replacing  the  motor  function  of  one  reflex 
by  that  of  another? 

82.  What  function  discussed  in  the  preceding  chapter  gives  an 
advantage  to  simultaneous  over  successive  stimulation  in 
habit  formation? 

83.  Illustrate  the  four  meanings  of  "forgetting"  referred  to  in 
the  text  by  four  stories  not  found  in  the  text. 

84.  What  does  the  text  mean  by  positive  and  negative  suscep- 
tibility  of  neurons? 

85.  In  what  ways  (mentioned  or  not  mentioned  in  the  text)  may 
"preoccupation"  corrupt  a  "learning  curve"  or  a  '"forgetting 
curve"? 

86.  What  facts  make  it  unavoidable  to  distinguish  a  specific 
conductivity  (or  resistance)  of  certain  neurons  from  their 
general  conductivity? 

87.  When  do  we  call  several  stimuli  similar,  judging  purely  from 
the  Other-One's  motor  activity,  which  we  observe? 

88.  How  does  "similarity"  depend  on  "specific  resistance"? 

89.  How  can  a  long  path,  after  its  resistance  has  been  reduced, 
become  shortened? 

90.  How  may  the  shortening  of  the  nervous  path  corrupt  the 
learning  curve? 

91.  Why  is  the  difference  between  "persuading  or  tempting"  and 
"training"  the  same  as  that  between  "willing"  and  "learn- 
ing"? 

92.  Why  do  sociologists  use  the  term  "freedom"  more  frequently 
than  physicists? 

93.  What  concrete  fact  gives  rise  to  the  abstract  term  "strength 
of  will"? 


428  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

94.  Under  what  conditions  could  the  workman  mentioned  in  the 
text  (and  under  what  conditions  could  he  not)  "will"? 

Chapter  7. 

95.  What  is  the  origin  of  the  term  "phrenology"? 

96.  Why  does   an   animal   have   "ganglions"? 

97.  Why  does  not  a  worm  show  an  upper  and  lower   series  of 
ganglions  as  clearly  as  it  shows  a  right  and  left  series? 

98.  Has  a  starfish  one  brain  or  five  brains? 

99.  What  is  a  brain? 

100.  Has  a  crayfish  a  brain? 

101.  Has  a  fish  a  brain? 

102.  Why  has  no  animal  its  brain  in  the  tail? 

103.  When  in  evolution  a  single  ganglion  increases  in  relative 
size  continuously,  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  growth? 

104.  Discuss  the  relative  significance  of  three  methods  of  com- 
paring the  average  brain  weights  of  two  animal  groups. 

105.  In  the  proper  comparison  of  brain  weights,  how  can  one 
manage  to  get  along  without  measuring  the  body  surfaces? 

Chapter  8. 

106.  What  is  the  localizing  reflex? 

107.  What  is  the  logical  opposite  of  localizing  on  the  skin? 

108.  How  many  dimensions  are  there  in  the  localizing  reflexes 
of  the  eye  and  the  ear? 

109.  Did  you  find  in  the  text  an  old  problem  which  is  no  prob- 
lem? 

110.  What  is  negative  localization? 

111.  What  is  the  grasping  reflex? 

112.  In  what  respect  does  the  Other-One  depend  on  combining 
the  localizing  and  the  grasping  reflexes? 

113.  Enumerate  the  adjusting  reflexes  of  the  more  conspicuous 
sense  organs. 

114.  When  do  we  not,  and  why  do  we  not,  localize  a  sound  thru 
the  medium  of  the  localizing  reflex?  What  do  we  use  in- 
stead? And  what  is  the  use  of  having  an  auditory  localizing 
reflex  anyway? 

115.  What   is   the   signaling  reflex? 

116.  What  advantage  has  acoustical  over  optical  signaling? 

117.  Which  are  the  muscle  groups  serving  the  Other-One's 
acoustical  signaling? 


QUESTIONS   AND   PKOBLEMS  429 

118.  What  muscular  contractions  make  up  the  sleeping  reflex? 

119.  What  is  the  stimulation  in  the  case  of  the  sleeping  reflex? 

120.  State  the  two  causes  (other  than  incidental  fatigue  of  his 
nervous  system)  of  the  sleeper's  failure  to  converse  with 
you  readily. 

121.  Enumerate  the  eight  forms  of  behavior  which  the  text  re- 
gards as  fundamental  and   therefore   inherited. 

122.  What  is  right-sidedness,  and  why  is  it  discussed  in  this 
chapter?     Is  it  a  reflex,  a  habit,  or  neither? 

123.  Why  is  it  impossible,  by  observing  people  a  short  time  in 
their  infancy,  to  foretell  whether  they  will  turn  out  right- 
sided  or  left-sided? 

124.  Is  walking  an  inherited  concerted  action? 

125.  What  reflex  must  combine  itself  with  the  habit  of  balancing 
in   order  to  develop  balancing   into   walking? 

126.  The  following  habits  are  examples  of  actions  falsely  enum- 
erated as  "instincts"  by  various  writers:  Curiosity,  esthetic 
expression,  communicativeness,  eating  and  drinking  (as  per- 
formed by  humanbeings),  cleanliness,  parental  care,  rivalry, 
co-operation,  hiding.  Try  to  reduce  each  to  such  phy- 
siological reflexes  as  you  probabl}'  have  heard  of,  and  as  far 
as  possible  to  some  among  the  eight  classes  of  inherited  be- 
havior emphasized  by  the  text. 

127.  When  do  we  refer  to  reflexes  or  habits  as  "emotions"? 

128.  Reduce  the  following  examples  of  so-called  emotions  to 
wasted  habits  or  wasted  reflexes  in  the  manner  of  answering 
question  126:  Anger,  shame,  sorrow,  tenderness  or  love,  envy, 
wonder,   cordiality,   admiration,   hatred,    doubt,   exuberance. 

129.  Is  play  a  reflex?     What  is  play?     Related  to  "exuberance"? 
Chapter  9. 

130.  Give  a  reason,  other  than  the  limitation  of  muscular  ac- 
curacy, why  Nature  has  established  a  rather  large  thresh- 
old of  sensibilit}'  on  the  skin. 

131.  Why  is  the  threshold  the  smaller,  the  greater  the  curvature 
of  the   surface  region? 

132.  What  reflex  action  or  actions  are  replaced  by  the  answer 
"Two"  in  cutaneous  discrimination?  And  by  the  answer 
"One"? 

133.  How  many  dimensions  has  cutaneous  space  perception? 

134.  Make  plain  that  space  perception  is  a  species  of  motor  con- 
densation  in   the   nervous   functioning. 

135.  Why  is  an  "illusion"  like  an  "emotion"? 


430  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHEE-ONE 

Chapter  10. 

136.  What  proves  the  existence  of  inherited  visual  space  percep- 
tion? 

137.  Demonstrate  the  dependence  of  nervous  condensation  on 
the  size  of  the  interval  between  stimulated  points. 

138.  Hov^  do  you  explain  that  there  is  no  real  distinction  possible 
between  the  "substitution"  and  the  "addition"  of  a  new  re- 
action? 

139.  What  habits  has  the  Other-One  with  respect  to  angles  in 
perspective? 

140.  What  happens  when  areas  in  the  visual  field  compete  with 
mere   points? 

141.  What  examples  can  you  give  of  two-dimensional  or  of 
color  perceptions  for  which  a  third-dimensional  localiza- 
tion is  substituted? 

142.  Why  does  the  Other-One  call  the  moon  larger  when  it  is 
near    the    horizon? 

143.  Give  examples  of  reflex  actions  (adjusting  the  sense  organ) 
to  which  a  localization  in  the  third  dimension  is  habitually 
added. 

144.  Is  "single  vision"  or  "double  vision"  simply  a  matter  of 
mathematical  correspondence  or  non-correspondence  of 
retinal  points  stimulated? 

145.  Give  examples  of  division  of  labor  between  corresponding 
retinal   points. 

146.  Give  an  example  of  complete  co-operation  of  corresponding 
retinal    points. 

147.  Give  examples  of  "wrestling"  and  of  more  or  less  com- 
promising between  corresponding  retinal  points. 

148.  What  is  the  essential  difference  between  the  two  visual 
images  (both  being  two-dimensional  space  perceptions)  of 
the  two  eyes? 

149.  How  do  you  describe  in  words  and  in  a  drawing  the  lateral 
displacement  for  a  farther  and  for  a  nearer  object  in  stereo- 
scopic  vision? 

150.  Why  does  the  perception  of  a  puzzle  picture  change  with 
difficulty? 


QUESTIONS   AND   PROBLEMS  431 

Chapter  11. 

151.  Why  must  there  be  two  kinds  of  excitations  to  be  called 
forth  by  the  intensity  of  the  light?  Why  is  one  kind  not 
sufficient? 

152.  What  is  the  relation  between  a  visual  process  and  a  visual 
substance? 

153.  How  could  a  second  visual  substance  be  helpful  to  the  animal 
world? 

154.  What  proves  that  Nature,  before  dividing  the  spectrum  in 
one  definite  point,  experimented  with  different  divisions? 

155.  In  what  sense  is  every  normal  retina  color-blind? 

156.  What  does  it  mean  that  the  Blue  excitation  and  the  Yellow 
excitation  are  antagonistic? 

157.  What  is  meant  by  general  adaptation  of  the  retina? 

158.  What  is  successive   induction? 

159.  What  is  simultaneous  induction? 

Chapter  12. 

160.  What  mistake  does  Nature  appear  to  have  made  in  creating 
the  second  visual  substance?  And  how  did  she  remedy  the 
defect? 

161.  It  seems  that  Nature  created  the  third  visual  substance 
somehow  as  God  created  w'oman.     How? 

•162.  How  are  the  singular  and  dual  colors  related  to  the  four 
excitations    (or   visual    processes)? 

163.  What  singular  color  does  not  exist  in  the  rainbow? 

164.  Why  are  there  only  singular  and  dual,  and  not  also  plural 
colors? 

165.  Why  does  complementariness  of  colors  interest  the  psychol- 
ogist  but   little? 

166.  Why  do  the  primary,  principal,  etc.,  colors  of  technology  in- 
terest the  psychologist  but  little? 

167.  How  does  a  "flight  of  colors"  come  about? 

Chapter  13. 

168.  What  is  the  simplest  kind  of  auditory  organ? 

169.  What  changes  are  needed  in  the  auditory  organ  in  conse- 
quence of  leading  the  sound  waves  to  the  organ  thru  a 
tunnel? 


432  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

171.  What  is  the  original  purpose  of  the  ear  drum? 

172.  Why  are  the  cavity  and  the  partition  lengthened? 

173.  What  advantage  results  in  pathological  cases  from  the  fact 
that  the  ear  can  function  in  more  primitive  and  more  ad- 
vanced   ways   simultaneously? 

Chapter  14. 

174.  What  must  happen  to  the  stream  of  air  exhaled  in  order  to 
produce  density  changes  directly,  or  to  cause  a  solid  body 
to  vibrate  and  in  turn  produce  the  density  changes? 

175.  What  makes  weak  and  irregular  density  changes  strong 
and  regular? 

176.  Which  two  may  be  said,  generalizingly,  to  be  the  places 
where  the  stream  of  air  is  easily  obstructed? 

177.  In  what  sense,  and  why,  does  great  obstruction  in  the 
mouth  preclude  the  production  of  "voiced"  sounds? 

178.  What  do  we  call  speech  during  which  the  larynx  never  ob- 
structs the  stream  of  air? 

179.  Of  what  use  in  sound  production  is  the  mouth,  and  every- 
thing connected  with  it,  aside  from  obstructing  the  passage 
of  the  air? 

180.  If  whispering  is  one  extreme,  what  is  the  other? 

181.  What  is  a  syllable? 

182.  Are  the  consonants  consonants  and  the  vowels  vowels  in 
all   languages? 

183.  Give  examples  showing  how  natural  economy,  laziness,  and 
excitedness  may  influence  the  pronunciation. 

184.  What  can  be  said  about  individuality  in  speaking? 

185.  Imitativeness  is  not  a  reflex,  but — ? 

186.  Are  there  inherited  kinesthetic,  olfactory,  or  gustatory  im- 
itative actions? 

187.  Are  there  inherited  visual  or  auditory  imitative   actions? 

188.  How  do  auditory  and  other  imitations  change  during  life? 

189.  How   is   "serial   activity"   illustrated   in   speech? 

190.  Do  the  localizing  and  the  sound  signaling  reflexes  seem  to 
be  related? 

191.  What  may  happen  when  one  speaks  an  unaccented  lan- 
guage? 


QUESTIONS   AND   PROBLEMS  433 

Chapter  15. 

192.  What  do  we  mean,  in  psychology,  when  we  call  repeated 
motions  rhythmical? 

193.  What  used  to  be  the  chief  argument  for  the  belief  that 
grouping   in  action   was   inherited? 

194.  What  do  you  think  of  another  person's  "rhythm"  when 
you  hear  him  counting? 

195.  What  habits  of  "rhythm"  are  rarely  acquired?  And  why 
is  that  so? 

196.  By  what  procedure  can  an  odd  group  most  easily  be  de- 
veloped from  an  even  group? 

197.  Why  is  rhythm  the  most  wonderful — perhaps  the  only  true 
— example   of   transference    of   training? 

198.  What  differences  may  be  noted  of  the  rhythm  in  dancing, 
poetry,   music   and   prose? 

199.  Do  laborers  sing  in  order  to  make  their  work  rhythmical? 

Chapter  16. 

200.  What  is  generalizing  as  a  bodily  function  of  the  Other- 
One? 

201.  What  is  the  value  of  abstractions  to  the  Other-One? 

202.  In  what  ways  are  generalization  and  abstraction  aided  by 
the  invention   of  script? 

203.  What  entirely  new  vocation  is  made  possible  as  soon  as 
generalization  and  abstraction  have  become  established  in 
the  human  race? 

204.  Give  examples  of  special  importance  showing  that,  and  to 
what  extent,  the  progress  of  science  depends  on  generaliza- 
tion and  abstraction. 

205.  Is  the  acquisition  of  generalizations  and  abstractions  dif- 
ferent from  the  acquisition  of  other  habits? 

206.  What   is   speculation? 

Chapter  17. 

207.  Why  are  schools  for  deaf-born  children  more  indispensable 
than   schools   for   blind-born   cliildren? 

208.  What  superstition  existed  in  former  centuries  concerning 
deaf-born  people? 

209.  What  is  the  history  of  the  education  of  the  deaf? 

210.  Do  animals  think? 


434  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  OTHER-ONE 

211.  What  corresponds  in  scientific  psj'chology  to  the  popular 
opposition  of  the  mental  and  the  physical  in  habits? 

212.  How  does  the  education  proceed  of  those  who  are  born 
both  blind  and  deaf? 

213.  What  justifies  our  calling  sight  and  hearing  the  higher 
senses? 

Chapter  18. 

214.  Why  is  the  literal  meaning  of  "somnambulism"  a  misunder- 
standing of   "sleep"? 

215.  In  what  respects  are  the  actions  of  Lady  Macbeth  unusual? 

216.  Give  examples  of  life  histories  demonstrating  that  abnormal 
preoccupation  is  not  restricted  to  the  functions  of  a  par- 
ticular high  nerve  center. 

217.  What  does  the  transferability  or  transmutability  of  hysterical 
symptoms  prove  with  respect  to  the  question  just  hinted  at 
(under  216)  and  with  respect  to  deflection? 

218.  What  proves  that  abnormal  preoccupation  does  not  readily 
extend  to  the  functions  of  the  lower  centers? 

219.  What  are  the  two  fortunate  indirect  consequences  of  the 
freedom  of  reflexes  from  preoccupation? 

220.  Give  various  reasons  for  the  wrong  belief  that  hystericals 
are  fond  of  telling  lies? 

221.  How  is  hypnotism  related   to   somnambulism? 

222.  What  is  personality? 

223.  Make  a  list  of  the  anatomical  and  physiological  conditions 
of  a  normal  functioning  of  the  human  nervous  system. 
Then  derive  from  it  a  list  of  all  possible  abnormalities. 

Chapter  19. 

224.  What  is  the  wrong  and  the  right  meaning  of  a  materialistic 
conception    of    history? 

225.  What  is  the  speculative  and  the  scientific  conception  of 
criminology? 

226.  What  has  kept  sociology   from  submerging  in   speculation? 

227.  What   is  a  psychology   of   religion? 

228.  Why   is   it   unnecessary   to   define   psychology? 

Chapter  20. 

229.  Why  would  a  general  knowledge  of  modern  psychology 
have  prevented  the  cruelties  of  religious  persecutions? 


QUESTIONS   AND   PROBLEMS 


435 


230.  Why  would  a  general  knowledge  of  modern  psychology 
prevent  international  atrocities? 

231.  Why  would  a  general  knowledge  of  modern  psychology 
save  people  from  the  craving  for  hypnotism  and  similar 
phenomena? 

232.  Why  would  a  general  knowledge  of  modern  psychology 
have  prevented  the  cruelties  of  the  criminal  law. 

233.  What  is  human  society  and  how  does  it  concern  the  psy- 
chologist? 


INDEX 


Absent-mindedness,      see      pre- 
occupation. 
Abstraction   357-369,    371,    3««. 

Adaptation   274,  275,   278, 
289-291. 

Adjusting  the  sense  organs 
187-195,   215,   243. 

Afferent  47. 

After-images  290,  291. 

Anatomy  8. 

Anesthesia  390,  391. 

Anger  214,  215. 

Angles  232,  235,  238. 

Animals  6,  371,  380,  421. 

Antagonistic  colors  272,  276, 
278,  279,  283,  287,  289. 

Antagonistic  muscles  122. 

Arches  44. 

Aristotle  226,  227. 

Art  215,  414. 

Attention  101,   114117, 

Auditory  excitations  301,   307. 

Automatic  action  143. 

Binocular  vision  245,  251,  260. 

Bird   164. 

Blind  371,  379. 

Blind    spot    246. 

Blood  275. 

Bonet  375,  376. 

Bonnier  303. 

Brain   152,   156-161,   163,    167. 

Brain  weight  169. 

Centers  47-49. 


Centers,    functional    differences 

of  low  and  high,  95,  113,  12b, 

388. 
Cerebrum  163-167. 
Check   valves   76-77. 
Chemistry  138. 
Circular  action   63. 
Cold  colors  271. 
Color  blindness  270,  271,  287. 
Color  etymology  284. 
Color  pyramid  2St). 
Color  zones  272,  286. 
Competition   of    stimuli    99-102, 

106. 
Complementary    colors    287. 
Computation    of    nervous    flux 

86. 
Concerted  action  50-66,  329. 
Condensation  120,  225. 
Conditioned  reflex  119. 
Conductivity  16,  17,  70,   12,  74, 

80,   87,   125,   130,   135,   136. 
Consonants    319,    320. 
Contractility  16. 
Cortex  25. 
Crayfish  160,  161. 
Criminology   403,   419-421. 
Current,    nervous,    108,   135. 
Dancing  349,  351,  352. 
Deaf  296,  311,  370-379. 
Deflection   103-106,   110,   114, 
117,    397. 

Delayed  reaction  46. 


(436) 


INDEX 


437 


De  I'Epee  374,  377. 
Demented  397. 
Democracy   402. 
Depth  240,  244,  256. 
Descartes  4. 
Differentiation    15,    17,    134, 

136. 
Dimensions  of   space   182,    183, 

222,  223,  240,  244,  256. 
Discrimination    219,    221,    234. 
Distribution     of     flux     in     the 

nervous  system  85. 
Dual  Colors,  283,   284. 
Dumb   372-379. 
Ear   293,    295,    297,    308-312. 
Earthworm  154-157. 
Economics   403,   407. 
Economy  in  speech  320. 
Effectors   47. 
Efferent  47. 
Emotion  211-215,  226. 
Engines   6. 
Epilepsy  398. 
Esthetic  emotion  215. 
Evolution  168. 
Excitation  14,  17,  28-31,  107, 

290. 
Eye  246,  262. 
Eye  ball  179. 
Fatigue  201. 
Fighting  196,  197. 
Fish   161. 

Flight  of  colors  291. 
Forgetting    132-134. 
Freedom  147,  148. 
Frog  163. 
Gall  152. 
Ganglion  155-157. 
Ganglion   cell   20,   23,   26. 


Generalization    356-369,    371. 

Gesticulation    333. 

Genius   117,   174. 

Glands  14,  47. 

Government  10,  412. 

Grasping  186. 

Gray  matter  24. 

Growth   6,    7. 

Habit  93,    119,   167,   168,  388, 

395. 
Habit  formation  123,  127, 

130,  396. 
Hering   272,   276,   278. 
High   and   low   centers,   see 

centers. 
High    and    low    creatures    7. 
High   and   low  senses   379, 

380. 
History  401. 
Horopter    250. 
Hunger  12,   402. 
Hypnotism  393,  394,  409,  415- 

418. 
Hysteria  384-393,  397. 
Idiocy  395,  396. 
Illusion   226,  227,  231,  291, 

292,  350. 
Imagination  232. 
Imitation  323-329. 
Inattention    116-117. 
Induction  274-278,   289,   291. 
Inhibition  109-110. 
Innervation  79. 
Instinct     110,     114,     176,     210, 

395. 
Integration   67,   158. 
Intellect   372,    373,   377-380, 

397. 
Intelligence  168-175. 


438 


INDEX 


Janet  384,  393. 

Jelly-fish    56-61.    68-72, 

Jespersen  321. 

Joy  214,  215. 

Kinesthetic  148. 

Labor  and  rhythm  351-353. 

Language  7,  322,  323,  372,  377, 

378. 
Larynx  314,  316.  319.  321. 
Learning  124,   130,   131,   145, 

147,  396,  398. 
Levels  of  connection,  74,  75,  78. 
Local  action  50-66,  71. 
Localizing  177-186,  193-195,  198, 

216,  219,  331. 
Locomotion  11,  12. 
Magnetism,   animal   415,   416. 
Marriage  9. 
Materialism    405,    406. 
Measuring  3. 
Mechanics  366-368. 
Memory  378. 
Moth   38.  39. 
Motor    condensation    120,    225, 

231,  236,  238. 
Motor  points  42. 
Mouth    315-318,    321,    323. 
Mueller   405. 
Muscles    14,    47. 
Muscle  sense  61-63,  148,  149. 
>Iusic   137,   138,   346,   348, 

349,   351. 
Naming  219. 

Nationality  322,  323,  333. 
Negative   localization   185,    198. 
Negative  response   96-98. 
Nerve  cell  18,  20. 
Nervous  system  36,  69,  73,  76, 
81-84.    394-398. 


Neurons  18-27. 

Neurosis  381,   383,    384, 

Obstacle  27,  33. 

Overflow  113,  114. 

Paralysis   386,   387,   389,   390. 

Paranoia  398. 

Perception  219-227. 

Periodic   motion   39,   40. 

Peripheral  points  49. 

Personality   394.   397,  398. 

Persuasion    146. 

Phrenology  151,  152,  169. 

Physiology    8,    405,    421. 

Plants   6. 

Play  215. 

Poetry  346,  348,  350,  351. 

Ponce  374,  377. 

Preoccupation  94,  115,  117,  125, 

130,    134,    147,   201,    383,    384, 

388,  393,  394. 
Primary  colors  288,  289. 
Psychology,  Definition  of,  8-11, 

405-408,   421,   422. 
Punishment  10,   419. 
Puzzle  pictures  260. 
Qualitative  369. 
Quantitative    369. 
Reaction  time  45,  46. 
Receptors   47. 
Reflex  45.   50,   176,   388. 
Reflex  arches  47,  48,  73. 
Religion  5,  404,  406,  410,  414. 
Repetition   131. 
Resistance  16,  70,  72,  74,  80,  87, 

125,  126.  130,  135,  136. 
Responses   14,   15. 
Resultant  of  stimuli  100,  102. 
Retinal   co-operation   245-256. 
Rhythm  335. 


INDEX 


439 


Rhythmical  motion  39,  40. 

Right-handedness    203-205,    332. 

Schools  10,  372. 

Scnpt  354,  362,   371,   377. 

Self  3,  4. 

Sensitivity    15,    16. 

Sensory  condensation  121. 

Sensory  points  42. 

Serial  action  62,  78-80,  85,  330. 

Sex   169-174,   196. 

Short-circuiting    142. 
Signaling   195-200,  293,   331. 
Similarity  136-138. 

Singular  colors  283,  284. 
Sleep  96,  116,  200-202,  382. 
Snail    28-36. 
Social  196. 

Sociology  8-10,  148,  404. 
Somnambulism    381,    382,    386, 

393. 
Song   318,  352,  353. 
Sorrow    212-214. 
Soul   3-5,    373,    382,    394,    399, 

406,  411,  414,  421,  422. 

Sound  294,  304,  308. 
Space    perception    219-227,    229, 
231. 

Specific  excitation  111. 
Specific  resistance  134  138,  301. 
Spectrum    265,    278,    279-283. 
Speech  321,  322,  361,  371,  377. 
Speech  organs  199,  200. 
Starfish   159. 
Stereoscopic  vision  245,  256. 


Stimulus  13,  14,  290. 

Stumpf  138. 

Susceptibility   of  neurons  130, 

132-135. 
Syllables  320. 
Synapse  78,  81,  93,  95,  125.  130, 

134,    145,    383,    384,   386,    388, 

393,   397. 
I    Synergies  138. 
Temperament  333. 
Temptation    146. 
Ter  Kuile  311,  312. 
Thoughtfulness  7,  356,   371-373, 

378,   380. 

Threshold   217-219,   221. 
Transference  of   training  338. 

Turning   28-36. 

Uexkuell  102. 

Visual    excitations    264,    265, 

272,   278-284,   291. 
Vocal  cords  316. 
Vocal  organs  199,  200. 
Voiced  sounds  316. 
Voiceless  sounds  316. 
Vowels   319,    320. 
Wakefulness  202. 
Walking   205-210. 
Warm  colors  271. 
Warming  up  94,  131. 
Wasted    reflexes    195,    212,    215, 

226,   227. 
Whisper  316,  317. 
Will,   6,   7.   145-150,   398. 
Woman  169-174. 
Worm  145-157. 


Publislied  by  the 

MISSOURI  BOOK  COMPANY, 

Columbia,    Missouri. 


A  BRIEF  MANUAL  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  DEMONSTRATIONS 

to  accompany  as  illustrative  material   an  elementary  course  in  The 

Psychology    of    the    Other-One. 

By  Max  F.  Mever 
118    pages. 


f£B 


This  book  is  DUE  on  th^  last  date  stamped  below 


5 


mi^ 


JVl  1  Q  1938 
AUG     4 


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DEC  ^^ "   '"" 


IAN  5     1945 
JAiV  2  7 


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DEC  as  1^t 


Form  L-9-15m-7,'31 


MARl  81950 
SEFD  LD-Ui?a 

MM  ivm 


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3   1158  00023   7833 


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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

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